AN EXPOSURE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 MISCHIEVOUS PERVERSIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 HOLY SCRIPTURE 
 
 IN 
 
 THE NATIONAL TEMPERANCE SOCIETY'S 
 
 PUBLICATIONS, 
 
 • * 
 
 % 
 
 ADDRESSED TO MEN OF SENSE AND CANDOUR: 
 
 BY 
 
 'rev. IOHN carry, D. I) , 
 
 OF PORT PERRY. 
 
 •\ 
 
 " We must nofe stii 
 Ou.¥ n<«iesfiiurT actions, in the 
 To cope malicious oonstuceni." 
 
 —^SMwspBBl*. 
 
 'tmm'm-x 
 
 Ymrnm-m Rows«Wi & HTTTCfixsoN. 
 
 — ^^^^^jm^ — -^— — 
 
 i!t 
 
/<:> 
 
 AN EXPOSURE 
 
 M 
 
 • Of iUB 
 
 MISCHIEVOUS PERVERSIONS 
 
 \ Of 
 
 •I 
 
 nOLT'SCRirTUEE 
 
 THE NATIONAL TEMPERANCE SOCIETY'S 
 i*' . PUBLICATIONS, . . ^ ■■■ 
 
 . ADDRCSSED TO MEN OF SENSE AND CANDOUR: 
 
 HEV. JOHN CARRY, D. D., 
 
 - • '; OIJ' PORT PERRY. ^ ^^ 
 
 " 'Ve must not stint 
 Our necessary actions, in the fear 
 To cope malicious ceusurers." 
 
 — Shakespeare. 
 
 TORONTO: 
 
 Pkinted by Rowsell & Hutchison. 
 
 J885. 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 15 
 
 f CHAPTER I. J 
 
 The Dislionesty of Temperance Partisanship. > • 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 Examination of Temperance Appeals to the Bible. - - 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 The Witness of Christian History Misrepresented. - • « 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Witness of Fact Crystalized in Christian Phrase. - - 67 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Temperance Misuse of Scripture. - . - - - 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Specimens of Texts Perverted. - - • . 
 
 G7 
 
 73 
 
<.\.. ;'■,:■ 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ', TTIE DISHONESTY OF TEMPERANCE PARTISANSHIP. 
 
 * * It was the duty of men to abstain from lying a groat deal more 
 than they did."— T. Car.ye. 
 
 Temperance is so expressly declared in holy Scripture to 
 be a " fruit of the S])irit," and has held such a recof^nized 
 posihion among the moral virtues, from the days of Aristotle to 
 this moment, that its claims upon us both as men and Christiana 
 cannot be disputed ; and we say of it what St. Paul says of 
 the truth, " We can do nothing against temperance, but for 
 temperance." But this honourable word has been of late 
 years, for the 6rst time in the history of language, emptied 
 of its moral and s'tcred significance, and has been injui'iously 
 misapplied to entire abstinence from the use of inebriating 
 liquors, and, with a still wider departure from its proper 
 meaning, to the legal prohibition of their manufacture, sale, 
 or use. In urging upon us this amazing innovation, a thing 
 never heard of in Christendom from the beginning, another 
 novelty is mainly relied upon, and indeed is very reasonably 
 felt to be necessary as a sure corner-stone for this composite 
 structure of political, social, and religious error — that is, a 
 change in the meaning of the word " wine," whereby it is 
 made to include non-fermented liquors, and the further prin- 
 ple of Biblical interpretation that where wine is commended 
 in tbe Bible it is to be always understood as unfermented, 
 
but where inchriaiing, it in always condemned. For tlie 
 furtliorance of these views, as a strong fonndatiou for indi- 
 vidual abstinence and legislative jirohihition, an extensive 
 literature has sprung into existence, ranging from hundreds 
 of tracts, leaflets, and pamphlets up to elaborate volumes, the 
 head-quarters of which in this continent is New York. There 
 " The National Temperance Society " has its " Publication 
 House," and thence its literaciire overspreads the Dominion 
 through the agency of an active propaganda. This is the 
 armoury which 8up))lie8 the weapons of prohibitionist preach- 
 ers, writers, and lecturers. Occasionally, indeed, is found a 
 muffled and bbishing acknowledment that it is going too far 
 to claim Bible authority for the repudiation of alcohol in all 
 its forms; but with scarcely noticeable exceptions this extra- 
 vagance is battled for through thick and thin, per /as ei nefas. 
 In the heat of extempore oratory, whether pulpit or platform, 
 the indeliberate misrepresentation of Scripture is pardon- 
 able ; but when misrepresentation is reduced to an art, and 
 practised as a profitable industry by authors and publishers, 
 it is monstroiis to plead, Yes, truth is sacrificed ; but it 
 is tx) tempei'ance ! It is a horrid confession, hateful to 
 God and man. Any serious moral perversion of this sort 
 must ultimately be productive of wide-spread mischief, 
 of moral disaster, unhinging the public conscience, and 
 ]>reparing for worse evils than the one we would be rid of. 
 In undertaking to exj>ose the unsoundness of these miscalled 
 Biblical arguments and the titter untrustworthiness of the 
 writei-s, I do not dream for a moment of discussing all their 
 inanities, for this would be to write a very big book instead 
 of a pamphlet, nor do I intend to discuss their many gro* 
 
tosqno Rpccimons of loariioil dissrvi-tation ; but T do promisa 
 to addiico examples enongli of botli to overturn tlioir posi- 
 tion, and, in tho judgment of sober minds, to destroy the 
 authority of the writers as guides. Instead, too, of wander- 
 ing through a maze of tracts, which have no connexion, save 
 tlieir identity of object and their iteration of tho cuckoo cry, 
 " Alcohol condemned by the Bible," I shall confine my 
 examination chiefly to the two complotest treatises of the 
 Society, with an occasional glance beyond. Tho largest is 
 entitled " The Divine Law as to Wines ; established by the 
 testimony of sages, physicians, and legislators against the 
 use of ftjrmented and intoxicating wines ; con6rmed by their 
 provision of unfermented wines to be used for medicinal and 
 sacramental purposes. Dy G. W. Samson, D.D., former 
 President of Columbian University, "Washington, D.C." It 
 is a volume in 12mo., of 4G7 pages. The other is, "Bible 
 Wines ; or The Laws of Fermentation, and Wines of the 
 Ancients. By He v. Wm. Pat ton, D.D.," 12mo., pp. 139. 
 Nothing could be more pretentious than Dr. Samson's book. 
 Every page bristles with learned names, often mis-spelt, and 
 with the most heterogeneous scraps of learning, better cal- 
 culated to bewilder than to enlighten ; so that on completing 
 the wearisome task of reading this Opus magnum of the 
 cause, the reflection arose spontaneously ; As a bull in a 
 china shop, so is Dr. Samson in a library. The glittering 
 fragments scattered by the former would be as much a 
 dinner-service, as the learned scraps of the latter are argu- 
 ment. Before addressing myself to the Biblical perversities 
 of the book : 
 
1. T aliall, first of nil, noto some of the blnndora, or tlie 
 frtlflonesH of tliin clmmpion, to show hew much he is to be 
 relied on. Tlio only puzzlo is, whore to begin. On p. 226 
 we read : "Any one disposed to an exhriuativo study in this 
 line can trace it in the niiraorous folios of the 'Acta Sane- 
 toriLDif compiled by the Jesuit Bollandus, and published at 
 Antwerp, A.D. 1G43." Now this series lias extended to 
 sixty volumes, the last being published, I believe, in 1884; 
 of these but two were published in 1643, and Bolland worked 
 only upon the first eight (see Contemp. Rev. for Jan., 1883). 
 Would any sane man send us for observations on wine to 
 those enormous folios, naming neither volume nor page 1 It 
 is clear that Dr. Samson has never looked upon the set, and 
 does not even know the facts of their literary history ; but 
 it awes a Canadian farmer to hear an American professor, in 
 his best hifalu tin, boast of being "an independent explorer 
 in the folios of universal Christian literature (" On the 
 same page he has a scrap from Aquinas, quoting him by 
 " Books," whereas there is no such manner of division in his 
 "Surania." Again, claiming (p. 236) Luther's vei-sion of 
 the Bible as on his side, he says : " Here it must be recalled 
 that Luther had the exhaustive scholarship of men like Cas- 
 tell, in his Ileptaglott Lexicon, and of Cocceius to sustain 
 him." Luther published his New Testament in 1522, and, 
 aided by Justus Jonas and Melancthon, the Old Testament 
 eight years later : but Castell's Lexicon was published in 
 1669, and the preface to Cocceius's Hebrew Lexicon is dated 
 22nd April of the same year ; that is, 139 years after Luther's 
 work was done 1 This is a plain imposition of sounding 
 names upon the unlearned. Nor is the palpable cheat 
 
relieved by the qualifying " men like OaatelL" Who wore 
 
 theyl . . ,, 
 
 [ may here observe that it is, at be^tt, a laughable folly to 
 olaiin Luthei as a patrou of total abHtinence, aa Dr. Sanisou 
 dues throughout his book. If the couplet ascribed to him be 
 not his, it certainly was so ascribed as representing his mood: 
 
 Wer liobt nicht Weib, VVein, und Oesang, 
 ' Er bleibt ein Narr aein Leben lang. 
 
 Who does not love his wife, wine, song, 
 Abides a fool his whole life long. 
 
 A Lutheran minister reminds us that at Worms, where 
 Luliior made his memorable confession: "Here I stand; I 
 cannot do otherwLs*,' ; God hoi}) me. Amen," Duke Erich 
 Kent him a jug of the renowned Eimbeck beer, which Luther 
 accepted thankfully, saying to the messenger : "As Duke 
 Erich thinks of me at this hour, so may our Lord Jesus 
 Christ think of him in Lis last hour." The same minister, 
 tlie Key. Chas. F. Spring, of ^ew Hamburg, quotes from a 
 sermon of Luther's : " God and man allovsr you to drink 
 tem[)orately, not only in time of need, but also on your days 
 of joy and honour." That is scriptural enough : " Drink 
 wine with a merry heart." 
 
 On p. 135, he quotes Virgil (Georg. i.) describing the 
 occupations of a small farmer during the lengthening autuin- 
 nal evening*!, and makes it '* his own rural home," vvliile he 
 trau'ilates "ferroque faces inspic^^t acuto" by "shatpening 
 liJH tools," instead of making sliv ivj jf dry pine to serve for 
 
'■/;';!' '■'■'-■ "•'■•>^, 
 
 oaudles, us did many an early settler in the baok-woods, or 
 of bog-wood, as used to do the poor Irish when I was a boy. 
 I often saw the bunches for sale.* On pp. 380, 385, this 
 "would-be miracle of learning shows his ignorance of the gen- 
 der of a common Latin noun : " ignava pecus," twice, for 
 ** ignavum." 
 
 But there are other blunders, far more numerous than his 
 pages, which I know not whether to describe as blunders or 
 falseness ; both, I am inclined to think, ai he must have 
 picked them up at second-hand, either una ble or not caring 
 to verify his statements On p. 445 we bave : " A self-for- 
 geifulness recognized by Longinus as characterizing the 
 eloquence of the great Christian Apostle Paul, which made 
 him heedless of critics on oratory, rhetoric, and even on 
 grammar, while his grand mind was aglow with the concep- 
 tions of vital truth." All this is made out of " Paul of 
 Tarsus whom I even affirm to stand foremost in the teaching 
 of such doctrine as does not admit of proof." On p. 20'J, 
 *' Athanasius, who ruled at the Council of Nice, A,D., 325." 
 He was not so much as a member of it, attending only as a 
 theologian, being but a young man. On p. 229, foil, this 
 " independent explorer in the folios " makes the most 
 ridiculous figure in discussing the relations of the Greek and 
 Latin churches, whose contentions he imagines to exist partly 
 in the Greeks insisting on ** uufermented or greatly diluted 
 vines at the Sacrament ! " It would take too long to expose 
 
 * Some of the commentators on Virgil explain the vei-b to mean 
 fashioning into the shape of an ear of wheat, and then splitting up as 
 a sort of torch. 
 
liis absolute nnrtcq-iainttince witli tliis wliole snlyecfc. Some 
 indistinct echoes of their corxtention about leavened bread in 
 the Eucharist, and some liazy notion of the ceremony of 
 mingling v/ater in the Eucharistic Cup, have reached him, 
 and his teetotal imagination lias transformed thc-m into an 
 authority for the National Temperance Literature readers. 
 But his most during feat in this line is probably the follo>y- 
 ing : He first assumes St. Jerome to have been an anti- 
 alcoholist, and then makes him the author of the Moham- 
 medan prohibition of wine ! " The tefwihers of Mohammed 
 w(u-e his wife's uncle, a learned Jew, and a Greek Christian, 
 who led him especially to the study of Jerome, whoso state- 
 ments as to intoxicating wine we have just considered," p. 
 217. First of rJl, the story of that Greek Christian, an 
 apostate goldsmith, i? exploded. Secondly, it is not very 
 credible that a Greek Christian should lead him to the 
 study of Latin fathers. Thii'dly, there is no trace of all this 
 in Gibbon, Milman, Sale, Badger, Stobart, Osborn, Brew- 
 ster's Cyclopoedia, or any authority respecting Mohammed 
 that I can lay my hands on. It is an invention of the 
 learned President, who thinks it a short cut to persuading 
 fojla. But this admired Moharatned differed seriously from 
 Dr. Samson j for believers, though forbidden wine in this 
 world, are taught to expect ** rivers of wine, delicious to 
 those who quaff it," in paradise, (Sura xlvii. 16). But I 
 have given instances enough of blundering, ignorance, 
 and recklessness to show what a false guide this man is, and 
 how much he is to be distrusted in every word he writes. 
 
 2. It will be useful to see how completely he contradicts 
 
, ■'■''. • . '■■( ■■.. ", 
 and, what ig more, confutes himself. Much of hU and Br. 
 
 Pii; ton's hiboiir is expended on pi-oving that ways of prevent- 
 ing the fermentation of grape-jnice were known to the 
 ancients, such as boiling, certain chemical processes, throwing 
 in calcareous earths, keeping in cold water, or burying in the 
 earth, frequent straining and decanting ; and that this liquid 
 was not intoxicating, yet was called wina We are assured 
 that now, as of old, grape-juice, if the air be carefully excluded, 
 will not ferment, and becomes in time a wholesome unintoxi- 
 cant. All this is true ; but every word and fact are against 
 the positions which they are meant to support. (1) The 
 careful, costly, elaborate methods of pr(!venting a natural 
 process show clearly that a dainty liqueur for the rich was 
 thus produced, and not a drink for the people at large. (2) 
 That man's art is absolutely necessary to prevent a resukt 
 provided for by the God of nature, is the best possible proof 
 that our use of fermented wines is the very purpose of God. 
 Dr. Samson quotes at large the conclup-ions of Mons. Pasteui, 
 the most eminent experimentalist living, to the effect that fer- 
 mentation can be prevented " by shutting off contajt with the 
 air," and in four other ways enumerated. Dr. Sampson adds 
 also jhe authority of Gay Lussac : '* I conclude that the fer- 
 mentation of grape-juice cannot commence without the aid of 
 oxygen gas," that is, without contact with the air, which the 
 art of man must exclude. And yet fermentation is the 
 devil's work ! This is no small blasphemy. (3) Dr. Samson's 
 own authorities confute him. On p. 353, et seq., hb quotes 
 from the " Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicales," presenting 
 the researches of sixty-one physicists and physicians. From 
 the observations under the word " Yin," I take a few sen- 
 

 tenoes : "The name of dumb or mute wines ia given to those 
 which are made from must whose first as well as second 
 fermentation lias been pi-evented. * * It is wrong to have 
 given it the name dumL wine, since there is wanting in it 
 the spirituous principle which constitutes the essence of wine. 
 * * Besides, this must does not preserve always its sweet- 
 ness, for when the heat of spring makes itself felt, it begins to 
 ferment, it loses its sweetness, and it becomes a veritable 
 wine." Thus the idea of unfermented wine is knocked on 
 the head, as a monster ignored by science. Again, from p. 402, 
 I give Dr. Samson's own elegant translation of Aristotle : 
 "Wine, the sweet, indeed evaporates; for being glutinous, 
 it also in these respects acts like oil; for under cold it 
 becomes viscid, and inflammable. It is, indeed, in name 
 wine ; in its operation,* however, it is not, for the liquid is 
 not wine-like ; wherefore also it does not intoxicate." 
 
 Now prepare for the beauty of Dr. S.'s inference : " Aris- 
 totle among the Greeks, like the medical encylopedibt among 
 the modern French wine-makers, simply emphasizes the fact 
 that there is a wine, properly so called, which has not the 
 quality of fermented wines"!!! A plain falsehood in set 
 terms, as every reader sees. What a worthy teacher of in- 
 nocent Canadians ! Again : he brings forward Pliny, as 
 " another link in the chain of testimonies as to unfermented 
 J^ wines," p. 142. "Stating that this aeiYXeuxo<:, or always 
 ^fnust, is made by preventiiig the juice from fermenting, he 
 'defines fermentation thus : * So they call the passing over of 
 must into wines,'" And yet Pliny, Aristotle, and the 
 
 .-.-^ * fyTt > ^^'d^ ^ really. 
 
Encylopcdist, who all deny that unferineDted must is wine, 
 are bo many •* links in the chain of testimonies" to the very 
 contrary ! This would be an audacious insult, if it woe 
 not rather a piece of utter idiocy, the product of this mad 
 argument 
 
 I have now sufficiently shewn what may be expected from 
 such " blind guides " when they lay their hands on the 
 sacred Scriptures. It is not too much to say, that in not one 
 single instance are they to be trusted, and that their errors 
 are not only as numerous as their pages, but as the texts they 
 quote. If any document of history, or any private letter or 
 speech, were as unjustly and perversely construed as ihe 
 words of the Bible are, the pervertei-s would be deservedly 
 stigmatized as the worst of men, and even driven from the 
 socie^-y of their fellows. Before these pages are closed, I 
 shall have to furnish, to my own sorrow, the amplest proofs 
 of this charge. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 EXAMINATION OF TEMPERANCE APPEALS TO TKE 
 
 BIBLE. 
 
 - ■'■ '■.-'■ 
 
 8 jSouXerai yap fiovov 6pu>v xai TzpoadoxutVj 
 dXuytffTUi iffTi TTji dXifjOsia^ xpun^i. — Maiander, 
 
 HOUOHLY TRANSLATED. 
 
 A senseless judge of truth is he who sees 
 
 And looks for nought but what himself may please. 
 
 1. As Dominion Temperance j)eople are supplied with 
 Bible lore from the National Society, N. Y., so has the society 
 been " replenished with soothsayers from the east." The Eng- 
 lish Temperance Bible Commentary has been a book of great 
 authority, and is still the great magazine of Biblical argu- 
 ments resorted to by such Temperance men as think the 
 Bible of some consequence. Perhaps the noblest Grecian in 
 England is the venerable Dr. Field, whose life has been one 
 of passionate devotion to Greek learning.* He is the renowned 
 editor of S. Chrysostom's Homilies for the University of 
 Oxford, of Origen's Hexapla, and of the Septuagint ; and 
 confuting, as he does triumphantly, the new rendering of 
 1 Tim. vi. 10, "The love of money is a root of all evil," which 
 is that of the Tem])erance Commentarv, he observes: "Instead 
 of 'rightly dividing the Word of Truth,' the present motto of 
 this work, I would suggest the following from Meuander " 
 
 *Since dead. 
 
,,,,, ; 16 V'/, •' 
 
 (which I have placed at the head of this chapter). Whoever 
 reads his Greek Testament, and is not yet acquainted with Dr. 
 Field's Otium Norvicense^ pars tertta, will not fail to thank 
 me for this notice, if he should get that admirable little work. 
 The suggested motto will show us what to expect in the 
 admirers of the Temperance commentary. We find drunken 
 maunderings about yayin and tirosh till one's stomach is 
 ready to turn at the folly and the nasty suggestiveness. I 
 have but a few pages for what they devote hundreds to, but 
 I do not despair of being able to say all that is really necea- 
 Bary in the space at my disposal. To begin with ; 
 
 Yayin, wine. This, they say, is a generic term, covering 
 grape juice in all its forms, whether intoxicating or not; 
 where intoxicating, it is neither commended nor used as the 
 symbol of good. It occurs about 140 times in the Old Tes- 
 tament. Nov/, I shall rest the opposite cause on three texts, 
 and I might confidently do so on one, the first, the two others 
 being unnecessary props. In 
 
 ISAIA.H XXV. 6, the Gospel "feast for all people " is des- 
 cribed, its dainties being *' fat things full of marrow, of 
 vt'ines on the lees well refined." I prefer giving here, to any 
 words of my own, the comment of a Hebraist of world-wide 
 fame, Dr. Franz Delitzsch, out of many consenting authori- 
 ties. " The figure is taken, as in Ps. xxii. 26 et seq., from 
 the sacrificial meals connected with the sJtelamim (peace 
 offerings). Shemarim mezukkakim are wines which have 
 been left to stand upon their lees after the first fernjentation 
 is over, which have thus thoroughly fermented, and have 
 
l)pcn kopt a long time (from shamar, to keep, specially to 
 allow to formont), aiicl whicli are then filtered before diinking 
 (Gr. oTvo? ffaxxia<i, i. e., dioXcff/iivo^ or dcr)Otxd<!, from dtrjOelVf 
 percolare)^ hence -^vino both strong and sweet .... The thing 
 symbolized in this way is the full enjoyment of blessedness in 
 the perfected kingdom of God." The latest learned English 
 commentator, Cheyne, says : " Wines on the lees, i. ft, wine 
 that has been left on its lees, or sediment, to heighten its 
 strength and flavour; comp. Jer. xlviil 11." Now, the best 
 confirmation of these sufficient words is to be found in the 
 j)ages of repetition that Drs. Samson and Patton furnish to 
 shew that, by frequent straining of must bofore fermentation 
 is completed, the vinous strength or intoxicating power is 
 diminished ; and, consequently, that the wine allowed to rest 
 upon its lees would have its spirituous strength in full 
 measure. But Jer. xlviii. 11, will throw no little light on 
 Isaiah's words : " Moab hath been at ease from his youth, 
 and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied 
 from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity : 
 therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not 
 changed :" that is, Moab had unimpaired national strength 
 and prosperity, like old wine that has both spirit and bouquet, 
 
 I think I may defy the banded powers of Temperance 
 ingenuity and learning, to bold this position. Here is one 
 glorious text where intoxicating wine is the symbol of the 
 highest blessings of redeeming grace, and this one text alone 
 dashes their despicable idol to the ground as helpless as 
 Dagon. But as the men of Ashdod " took Dagon and set 
 him Id bis place again," so by a plain lie does Dr. Patton 
 8 
 
erect liis idol in the prosence of the Ark of God. On p. 61, 
 giving tlie Hignitications of shemarim (lees), bo has " Isa. 
 XXV. 6, fat things'* // I nak nny reader, with a tinge of 
 virtue, is my word ** lie " strong enough without a strong 
 epithet? Now for the buttressing texts. In Gen. xlix. 11, 
 12, is given, as part of the blessing of Judah : " Binding his 
 foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine ; 
 he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood 
 of grapes : his eyes shall be red with wine." Need I do 
 more than refer, with the margin of our English Bible, to 
 Prov. xxiii. 29, " Who hath redness of eyes 1 " Jacob makes 
 no commendation of excess, but expresses poetically the great 
 abundance in store for royal Judah. Redness of eyes is 
 hardly to be attributed to grape-syrup any more than to 
 maple-syrup. N.B. — Doctors Samson and Fatten in quoting 
 these verses leave out ** his eyes shall be red with wine ! " 
 Talk of Jesuitry after that 1 They simply mean to deceive. 
 The only other text I shall adduce under this head is Oant. i. 
 2, ''Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth: for Thy 
 loves (margin) are better than wine," yayin. Here we have 
 the I'ppture and the intoxication of love (the figure of holy 
 aflfection to our Redeemer) compared with wine, and set 
 above it ; but if the wine meant be only a sweet, non-stimu- 
 lating syrup, it is such a comparison as would be deemed 
 little complimentary in human life, and such as no poet, 
 following nature, would or could have written. Comparing, 
 however, Ps. civ. 14, "wine that maketh glad the heart of 
 man," and Prov^ xxxi. 6, 7, the force and propriety of the 
 expression become at once apparent, and the last nail that 
 need be driven in the coffin of the "Bible Temperance" 
 
Iff ; 
 
 (I Imi >n is stniok Innr^. IJiit in fiirtlior ilhutration of tliia 
 VGi"s»e, pray compare vii. 9, ' And tho roof of thy iiioutli liko 
 the best wine (//fiym*) for my beloved, that gooth down 
 sweetly, causing the lips of thoss that are asleep to speak. ** 
 "Going down sweetly" (Margin, Heb. straightlij) is the 
 identical phrase so familiar to Temperance readers in Prov. 
 xxiii. 31, " when it moveth itself aright," but which shcMld 
 be translated as in the Canticles here. "Goes straight down" 
 well describes the acceptableness of the liquor, which, I 
 guess, wore it only a sweet syrup, would not be likely to 
 make the sleepers' lips to speak ! Maurer'a Commentary is 
 quoted elsewhere with approbation by Dr. Samson. I trans- 
 late its observations here; "Which goes, descends through 
 the throat, straight, i. e., because of its pleasant taste it goes 
 down very easily. It creeps through the lips of the sleepers, 
 through the lips into the throat cf the sleepers softly and 
 sweetly it slips, and so slipping it readily inebriates and 
 brings placid sleep." Creeps : this is the translation of 
 Gesenius also, ''to flow softly, «. gr., wine. Cant. vii. 10.'* 
 Maiirer adds: "The adjective sleeping is taken from what 
 has been previously expressed, and serves only to describe 
 fully the best wine." Fuerst, agreeing with our English 
 translation, observes in his lexicon on the form dover, " caiis- 
 ing to speak" : "of fiery wine, Song of Sol. vii. 10 : making 
 talkative the lips of those asleep, i. e., the wine is so fiery 
 that the intoxicated in their sleep speak aloud while dream- 
 ing." And yet yayiri here describes the highest thing in 
 heaven, the love of the Divine Bridegroom, Christ, to His 
 
 *Heb. yayn, which some think a shortened form, though it is more 
 certainly the oonstrtict state. 
 

 / 20 
 
 Spouso, tlio Cliurcli. Enough ! clonr it is, tlint worn tlio 
 " Bihlo TtMnponiiico " iilra to prevail, tluH Hook would liavo 
 to be bani.shed from the Biblp, and meautirne must bo very 
 lightly esteemed.* - - '•"' " •• ^' ;* 
 
 *A8is, the new wine "trodden out," occuia in five places. 
 Dr. Samson says, "it is evidently a caiefully prepared nmst, 
 or unfermented wine." Fermented or not, it was intoxicat- 
 ing, as clearly appears from Isa. xlix. 26, where God says of 
 the enemies of His people, " they shall be drunken with their 
 own blood as with 'asis, sweet wine." Marg. new wine. 
 And from Joel i. 5, " Awake, ye drunkards, and weep ; and 
 howl, all ye drinkers of wrne, because of the new wine, ^asia ; 
 for it is cut off from your mouth." This was the punishment 
 of their abuse of it, as well as of their other sins ; and yet 
 in iii. 18, the restoration of this intoxicating drink is promised 
 with other good things to repentant Israel. Again, 1 ask, 
 is Dr. Samson honest 1 is not the Bible Temperance theory a 
 delusion 1 See also Amos ix. 13. 
 
 TmosH, however, which occnris about forty times, is the 
 favourite talking ground of our literary Temperance men. It 
 is translated in our English Bible by wine or new wine. Let 
 us hear the Temperance Bible Commentary : ♦* Tirosh is not 
 wine at all, but the fniit of the vineyard in its natural con- 
 
 * Since the above was written the Revised Old Testament has 
 appeared. I beg the reader to turn to Isa. xvi. 8, 9, and note the 
 margin at vers* 3. In both Versions alike the prophet weeps over 
 th« destruction of the Vine of Sibmah renowned for the potency of 
 its wine. 
 
SI '•:. ■ , 
 
 dition." Hut hour Solomon, on the other side : " Thy presset 
 shall buret out with liroah," Prov. iii. 10 ; and Isu. Ixii. 8. 
 •* The sons of the Btranger shall not drink thy tirosh." Agaiu, 
 Dr. SaniKon says : " Modem investigations lead to the conclu- 
 sion that tirosh was inuit, or unfermented wine," p. 70. So 
 Dr. Norman Kerr, who snys that Hos. iv. 11, ia " the only 
 apparent exception ; " while Dr. Patton says : "So uniform is 
 the good use of this word that there ia but one doubtful 
 exception." I deny that there is a particle of doubt about 
 it But the mobt unlearned can judge in this case. Here 
 are the words : " Whoredom and yayin and tirosh take away 
 the heart," i. e., the unvUr standing, aa '• heait " in Hebrew 
 fco often means. s 
 
 Now can it be thought that a sweet syrup is to be classed 
 with whoredom and the excessive use of intoxicating drink 
 in its immoral effects 1 None but such as are besotted by 
 this modern idiocy can believe it. But, it is asked by Dr. 
 Patton, " if yayin and tirosh each means intoxicating wine, 
 then why use both 1 " Even if we could not answer, that 
 would not destroy a fa«t which exists independently of cur 
 understanding. The answer, however, is not far to seek : 
 yayin was the ordinary drink all the year round, whether 
 casked or bottled ; but the coming in of the new wine 
 tirosh^ would be the occasion of special indulgence, the chief 
 drinking-bout of the season. Read Isa. xvi. 10. But most 
 appositely is an illustration found in tract No. 214, p. 12, of 
 the society's list. It is the testimony of two American Mis- 
 sionaries from Persia. "They, the Pei-sians, have large 
 earthen jars, one-third sunk in the ground, and still so high 
 
;[*■" 1. ■ • -•'. > 
 
 . ll 
 
 22 
 
 that a man must stand on a stool to reach the top. These 
 are filled with grape-juice, a bheeptikiii in Htrotchod over the 
 mouth and plastered with cluy. After some two months it 
 is fermented, but, us it will turn to vinegar in a few weeks 
 if ()]iened, a man invites his friends, and for a week or ten 
 days, till his jar is empty, they continue in a state of beastly 
 intoxication. After a time a neighbour opens one of hid 
 jars, and a similar scene is enacted." It was a special time 
 of drinking. Can the largest charity excuse Dr. I'atton in 
 such an evasion as the following ] " Tirosh may represent 
 luxury, and, in this application, dishonesty, as iiroah formed 
 a jmrtion of the tithes, rapacity in exaction, and perversion 
 in their use, is titly charged with taking away the heart" I 
 Sup[)Osing all the rest of the forty places were doubtful, 
 would it not be common sense, and a matter of moral obliga- 
 tion, to ex])lain them by one example so indubitable as this ; 
 instead of, in the interest of a baseless theory, darkening and 
 perverting what was plain ? But though this much is enough, 
 let nic briefly give the judgments* of the Hebrew Lexicogra- 
 phers upon tirosh. 
 
 Gesenius : " (root yarash) New wine, so called because it 
 gets possession of the brain, and inebriates." Ills learned 
 translator. Dr. Robinson, adds : " All the j)assages go to 
 show, that tirosh is new wine of the first year, the wine crop 
 or vintage of the season ; and hence it is mostly coui)led with 
 wine and oil as a product of the land. That it was intoxi- 
 cating is shewn by Hos. iv. 11." Yet Dr. Samson, with 
 his accustomed virtue, dares to write : " Gesenius hints (!) 
 that tirosh is derived from yarash, because it gets possession 
 
«•# 
 
 of the brain — inebriatea." p. 73. If one man can be bo 
 
 al)Oiniiuil>]y lying, wLy need a whole society abet this Biiincr 
 uguiuHt all truth 1 Dr. Lke, late Kegius ProfcHsor of 
 Jlobrew in Cambiidge, says : " root yarash. Newwive^ so 
 uamed, it is thought, from its takiny posseaaion of the mind." 
 So AuuAUAM Trommius, giving as the definitiou, tho Greek 
 ** inelhusina, potus inebrians," intoxicating drink. This 
 methusnia is usod by Theodotion, Aquila, and Synunachiis to 
 represent our " strong drink," and by the Septuugint for 
 tiroah in llos. iv. 11. Bauster's New English and Hebrew 
 Lexicon gives the same derivation and meaning. And 
 so Bytuner and CoccEius. The Septuaqint has gleukoa 
 (sweet wine), methuama (drunkenness), and otJioa (wine), all 
 for tiroah. Robertson, formerly Professor of Oriental 
 languages in tho University of Edinburgh, derives it ^rom 
 the Arabic taraahf " to bo (^uick, to fermuuU" 
 
 Fuerst, a most learned Hebraist, adopts the usual deriva- 
 tion from yaraah to poaaesa, but with a diilerent signification, 
 " what is got from grapes or fruits ;" i.e., their product as 
 our possesMion, not as possfssing us. But of Fuerst, Dr. 
 Robertson-Smith, the })resent Arabic professor at Oxford, 
 says : '* He proceeds on very faulty etymological principles, 
 and must be used with great caution." Now, both Fuerst 
 and Gesenius refer us to the Syriac form of this same word, 
 meritho, Gesenius also to the Chaldee form mSrath. They 
 both really are the same word as tiroah ; m being the initial 
 formative in these langufii^os, as t is in Hebrew ; and th 
 representing ah. Now I turn to Buxtorp's Chaldee, Tal- 
 mudic, and Rabbinic Lexicon, and I extract his account of 
 
24 
 
 this word as used in the literature of the Jewish nation. 
 " Meuath, jmre ufimixed wine, »icera," (i.e., strong drink.) 
 After explaining its identity, as I had done above, before 
 looking into him, he goes on : *' It answers to the Hebrew 
 asiSf and sometimes to shechar. Hence it is used in Joel 
 i 5, for asis, and also Isaiah xlix. 26. Add Amos ix. 13 
 and Joel v. 10. In Deut. xxix. 6, it stands for shecfbaVf 
 strong drink, as also in Ps. Ixix. 12, where "drunkards" 
 are, as in the margin, " drinkers of strong drink." These ex- 
 planations of Buxtorf, it is to be remembered, are from the 
 earliest interpretations of the Hebrew Scriptures iu the 
 common speech of the people, and demonstrate in con- 
 testibly that they iinderscood tirosh to be an intoxicating 
 drink. And now for a little we really must hear Dr. 
 Samson. On p. 70 he says : " The word tirosh, as all agree, 
 is derived hom the verb yarash. The primary meaning is 
 to seize or dispossess." But, on p. 61, he makes it mean 
 "cast up," in the sense of vomit, referring for his authority 
 to Job XX. 15, and informs us that this " gives the first and 
 clearest intimation of the distinction made by the Hebrews 
 between two kinds of wine — the laxative and the intoxicat- 
 ing." Now, as they all repudiate the idea of our Lord's 
 furnishing wine of the latter sort at Cana, see what they ask 
 us to believe, viz., the Divine beneficence of a seven days' — 
 but I cannot go on. Did I not well say that this stupid 
 learning is enough to turn one's stomach ! 
 
 SnECHAR, the " strong drink " of our English Bible, is 
 most clearly an intoxicant ; but teetotal learning thinks this 
 "an inaccurate, a particularly unfortunate translation." So 
 
25 
 
 Leea, Kerr, Samson, Patton — all Dociora. But ivhy, I can- 
 not evon imagine, except that in Dent. xiv. 26 Shechar is 
 expressly permitted to the use of God's people, and in a reli- 
 gious action — '* before the Lord." As for Dr. Samson, his 
 tangle of folly and learned ignorance is enough to make any 
 one who attemj)ts to undo it lose his wits ; and this stupidity 
 might be tolerable if it were not for the stolid blasphemy, 
 unrelieved by it usual accompaniment, passion. The very 
 best that can be said of Dr. Samson is Churchill's line — 
 
 ** Learned without sense, and venerably dull." 
 
 The curse of the Eternal must and will rest on the authors of 
 spch a literature. But, I shall after a moment, leave their twad- 
 dle, and go to the pure fountain, the Bible itself They would 
 \\'AVQ shechar, following the lead of the Temperance Commen- 
 tary, be nothing more than "sweet drink," because the word is 
 manifestly the same as our sugar! forgetting Max Miiller's 
 warning, that " sound etymology has nothing to do with 
 sound !" On second thoughts, I will not go into this subject : 
 it would be wholly superfluous. I shall content myself and my 
 readers by giving St. Jerome's account of the word, and ad- 
 ding all the places where the word is used whether as verb or 
 noun, by which all may satisfy themselves. " Sicera is, in the 
 Hebrew tongue, every drink that can intoxicate, whether it 
 be made from corn or the juice of fruits, or by boiling honey 
 5 into a sweet and barbarian drink, or from dates, or from water 
 thickened and coloured by the boiling of fruits." I add, 
 from Taylor's Hebrew Concordance, his definition of the 
 verb, and the places where it occurs : — " Inehriari. To 
 drink plentifully ; to bave the spirits raised with drink ; 
 4 
 
to be (Ininkon. Fii/iirntiv';!//, To be drunken with blood is 
 to shed much. A nation h drunken, M'hen it is infatuated, 
 bereft of judgment, in a staggering condition (Jer. 51:7), 
 unable to guide or support itself. The strongest sort of 
 wine, Num. 28:7, or any other strong liquor. laa. 29:9 ; 
 51:21; Hag. 1:G; Cant. 5:1; Jer. 25:27; Lam. 4:21; 
 Nah. 3:11; Gen. 9:21; 43:34 (see margin): Isa. 49:26: 
 Jer. 51:7; Hab. 2:15; Isa. 63:6; 2 Sam. 11:13; Jer. 
 61:39, 57; 48:26; Deut. 32:42; 1 Sara. 1:14; 25:36; 1 
 Kings 16:9; 20:16; Prov. 26:9; Isa. 19:14; Jer. 23:9; 
 Job 12:25; Psal. 107:27; Isa. 24:20; Joel 1:15; laa. 
 28:1, 3; 1 Sam. 1:13. Noun, Potus inebriav^ : Num. 6:3; 
 Prov. 20:1; 31:4, 6 ; Isa. 5:11, 22; 24:0; 29:9; 56:12; 
 Num. 28:7, where the English is "the strong wine" — 
 [observe, " poured unto the Lord for a drink-offering ; " ] 
 Ps. 69:12, margin; Lev. 10:9; Num. 6:3; Deut. 29-6; 
 Judg. 13: 4, 7, 14 ; 1 Sam. 1:15; Isa. 28:7 ; Deut. 14:26 ; 
 Mic. 2:11 ; Ezek. 23:33 ; 39:19." Let any one but turn up 
 these places, and then decide whether the men who main- 
 tain shechar to be but " sweet drink," as innocent as the 
 French eau sucr^, are cheats or lunatics. For my })art I 
 consider the vulgar drunkenness of the bar-room as saintli- 
 ness compared with this deliberate lying in holy things. 
 
 Khemer. Dr. Samson is as delightful here as elsewhere. 
 Here is his account of the word. *• The first and simplest 
 artificial product is that called the * blood' and * the pure 
 blood of the grapes' . . . .the pure expressed juice of the grape 
 (Gen. xl. 11).... 'thou didst drink the pure blood of the 
 grape,* (Deut. xxzii. 14). .the chemer was manifestly a light 
 wine. In the original Hebrew the noun is only twice found ; 
 
rendered * pure' before the expression * blood of the grapes,* " 
 as above. Indeeil I have observed that Temperance orators 
 regard this verse as a very strong position. Inside it the 
 teetotal sect grow jubilant. •* Yes," they ory, and throw up 
 their caps of prohibition, " that's it, let- us have the pure 
 juice of the grape" — so they prosaically turn " blood " into 
 juice — " none of your diabolical fermented stuff !" But the 
 Hebrew text is open to none of this ignorant misconception j 
 and I suppose some at least will be surpriwed to learn what 
 it really is. The order and meaning of the words are: — 
 ** And the blood of the grape thou didst drink — Khemer'* ; 
 i. e.j wine, from Khamar, to ferment. The Septuagint trans- 
 lates: " He drank the blood of the cluster — wine." Observe, 
 in spite of Dr. Samson's emphasis on the words ^* pure," 
 there is no se^jarate word to which it corresponds in the 
 Hebrew, and it will be seen that it makes dead against him. 
 Our translators may seem open to blame for their version of 
 the text ; but a slight consideration shews how just they 
 were, and at tlie same time how adverse to our new learning. 
 The grape-j nice, when duly fermented, becomes defecated, and 
 not till then is it entitled to be called " pure," which we must 
 conclude is intended to do duty for " purified," for on no 
 other hypothesis can we account for the introduction of the 
 .English " pure," which has no verbal equivalent in the origi- 
 nal. This shews the mind of our translators as to what wine 
 is.* So all authorities. Gesenius : " So called as being 
 fermented." So Fu erst. Rosenmueller : " Pure wine, which 
 has fermented, and has been jmrified by fermentation." 
 
 *Month8 after this was written, 1 see the Revised Version 
 juatities me : " And of the blood of the grapo thou draukest wiuc." 
 
RobertsoD, Olavis Pentateuch! : ** Vinum merum, t. «., which 
 has fermented, and which has by its fermentation been 
 purified (defoecatum) . . Pure, red wine." He adds a long and 
 learned note in illustration, ending with " for Khemer seeraa 
 to denote a better-sortof wiue in Isa. xxvii. 2." Psal. Ixxv. 
 8, leaves no doubt as to the force of the word, and Dr. Sam- 
 son's comment leaves no doubt as to his mental disorder. 
 "For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine 
 is red, Khamar ; it is full of mixture ; and He poureth out 
 of the same ; but the dregs, thereof, all the wicked of the 
 ear^^! shall wring them out, and drink them." The language 
 is figurative. God holds a cup of strong, intoxicating wine ; 
 and as drunkards mixed their wine with other more power- 
 ful intoxicants, spices, and drugs, Prov. xxiii. 30 ; so God 
 mixes in His cup auger, and wrath, and woe, and calamity, 
 and compels the wicked to drink down to the very dregs 
 (lees), and the dregs themselves, this maddening draught. The 
 necessary basis of this figurative language is the intoxicating 
 character of the Khemer. By all means let the reader look 
 up the Jive references in the margin of the Bible, as an infal- 
 lible commentary on this verse (Ps. Ixxv. 8,) ere he reads 
 another lirie. 
 
 We can now appreciate Dr. Samson's sense and candour. 
 He says : " The added }>hrase, * it is full of mixture,' indi- 
 cates the contrast between the fresh, efiervescing, light wine 
 be/ore admixture, and its inflaming character after the 
 admixture." As if one would take as the btisis of an 
 intoTided nviddening draught the unintoxicaling wine, instead 
 of the very strongest ! Besides Proverbs as tj^uoted, sec also 
 
29 
 
 Isa. V. 22. And yet Khcmer is, in Moses's words, the very 
 climax of the et^.oJily bleHsing with which God had endowed 
 His Israel I 
 
 SovE. Of this Dr. Samson tells us, it was " wine diluted 
 with water and then boiled, thus driving off in part the 
 alcohol, and concentrating the nutritive qualities. The verb, 
 meaning to drink luxuriously, is used to indicate guzzling 
 drinkers, who are made heavy and stupid, rather than 
 excited by its use," p. 66, 67. " Must boiled to half syrup," 
 p. 414. Dr. Patton : "a luscious and probably boiled 
 wine." Dr. Samson has no doubt about the boiling. 
 Gesenius says, this is an onomatopoetic word, that U, formed 
 from the sound, and it is the same as our " sup." Well, let 
 the Bible explain its force, rather than Dr. Samson. In 
 Deut. xxi. 20, " This our son is a glutton and a drunkard" 
 SOVE. Same in Prov. xxiii. 21, Nahum i. 10, of the 
 Ninevites, in the siege when they were overthrown : " while 
 they be folden together as thorns, and while they are drunken 
 as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry ; " 
 i.e., as the translator of Gesenius explains, " marching in 
 phalanx, and intoxicated to reeling." In this verse Fuerst 
 also explains it, " to carouse immoderately."* Yet Dr. N. 
 Kerr is only " inclined to think " an intoxicant is referred to 
 here, and Dr. Samson thinks they had only made themselves 
 " heavy and stupid " by " guzzling " sweet syrup ! Profane 
 history confutes the corrupters here ; for it informs us that 
 
 •Revised Version : " Though they be like tangled thorns, and 
 be drenched as it were in their drink, they shall be devoured utterly 
 M dry itabblt." 
 
the king and nobles of Assyria worn proverbial for their 
 drunken habits, and Dlodorus Siculns, JJk. ii. ch. 20, says that 
 Nireveh was taken when the king and nobles were carousing \ 
 in a drunken revel. Yet sove must be an innocent non-intoxi- ; 
 cant! but in spite of Dr. Samson, Isaiah represents it as a 
 good thing : i. 22. This is his word : " Thy wine is mingled 
 with water." I will copy Fuerst under the verb mctjud : 
 ** Only used fig. to cut wine, i.e., to weaken it by mixing 
 water with it, to take from it the fiery and noble part, Isa. i. 
 22, comp. vinum castrare (Pliny H. N. 19, 19, 2) jiigulare 
 Falemum (Martial Ep. i. 28)." And so Delitzsch. What 
 does Dr. Samson say to this ? 
 
 I have now gone through all the words in the Hebrew 
 Bible which we ever translate "wine." They all clearly 
 represent drinks which had intoxicating properties, and which, 
 liowever beneficial, were capable of being abused to man's 
 great injury. 
 
 2. I must next turn to the New Testament, which has no 
 new or different information to give us, though not a little to 
 confirm what we have already gathered from the Old. When 
 we come to the Greek ofnos, the same etymologically as our 
 wine, the dictionaries recognize nothing but " the fermented 
 juice." And it is on the ground of its stimulating property 
 that our Lord compares His Gospel, a new mighty stimula- : 
 ting power, to wine. The same passage, too, Luke v. 37-39, \ 
 illustrates the quality of "good" wine: "No man having : 
 drunk old wine straightway desireth new ; for he saith, the I 
 old is better." Apt is the comment furnished by Plutarch : | 
 
" Tlio wine being mnde good, the more wijl bo drunk, and 
 tlio worse will be the drinkora." The Lritin Columella 
 informs us that almost all wine has the property of improving 
 by age. I suppose we shall be told that syrups do. At any 
 rate a milder syrup was not what the Jews understood by 
 " old wine." Lightfoot, in his Iloraj Hebraicse on Luke i. 
 15, says, that the Jews regarded such wine and sikera as 
 identical ; and he himself adds, that they are so without doubt 
 in Num. xxiii. 7 ; and in Luke v. 38, he shows they under- 
 stood by " old wine " that which was three years old. Again, 
 in that parable of more than man's charity, the parable of God's 
 philanthropy, the Good Samaritan cleanses the bleeding 
 wounds of humanity with his pungent, penetrating remedial 
 grace, re})resented by wine, in its proper sense ; for who can 
 think of sweet syrup ? We are sure of the meaning here, as 
 Galen, the famous physician of antiquity, expressly mentiona 
 red or dark wine {pinna melas), which is always fermented, 
 as proper to be used in such a case. Dr. P., however, holds 
 that it was " a healing ointment make by the mixture of the 
 two " ! 
 
 I am almost afraid to mention the Miracle of Cana, as it 
 is so vilely blasphemed by the teetotal rabble. Let us first 
 hear Dr. Patton. He evolves the character of the wine out 
 of his own inner consciousness, and he says : " It is pertinent 
 to ask, is it not derogatory to the character of Christ and the 
 teaching of the Bible to suppose that he exerted his miracu- 
 lous power to produce at least sixty gallons of intoxicating 
 wine ? — wine which inspiration had denounced as a mocker, 
 as biting like a serpent, and stinging like an adder, as the 
 
i 
 
 poison of dragons, the cruel venom of asps, and which the | 
 Holy Oliost hiul selected as the emblem of the wrath of the | 
 Almighty 1 Is it probable that lie gave t?iat to the guests I 
 after thoy had used the wine provided by the host, and which, | 
 it is claimed, was intoxicating V p. 89, 90. Thus three I 
 assumptions settle the matter. " It is derogatory to sup- | 
 pose" — "it is not probable" — ** wine which inspiration had | 
 denounced," &c. Q. E. D. Dr. P. next claims St. Angus 
 tine, St Chrysostom, Dr. Hall the Bishop of Norwich, and | 
 ** the critical Dr. Trench, now Archbishop of Dublin," (re- 
 signed December, 1884), as holding that the wine made was 
 the same as the juice in the grape. It is true they all com- 
 pare the instantaneous action of the miracle with the gradual 
 natural processes which issue in "the nobler juices" of the 
 grape. But it is unpardonably false to represent these authors 
 as holding that the water was not turned into " wine" pro- 
 per, that is, intoxicating. First, St Augustine, on this very j 
 place : " Read all the prophetic books ; and if Christ be not | 
 understood therein, what canst thou find so insipid and silly ? - 
 Understand Christ in them, and what thou readest not only ' 
 has a taste, but even inebriates thee ; transporting the mind j 
 from the body, so that forgetting the things that are past, 
 thou reachest forth to the things, that are before." Tract. ] 
 ix. sect. 3. Again, in sect. 5, speaking of our Lord's "open- | 
 ing the Scriptures" to the two disciples, he says: "Thus our 
 Lord Jesus Christ changed the water into wine, and that has 
 now taste which before had not, that now inebriates which 
 before did not." That is enough from St. Augustine, though 
 I shall have a good deal to say of this use of the word 
 " inebriate." 
 
St. Chrysoitom says, that tlie thing made was ''not Rimply 
 wiue, but the best wine," from whioh he takes occusion to 
 inveigh against excess, and urges that " a poor and plain 
 table is the motlier of health." But to conclude that he was 
 of the mind of the Temperance doctors, because he does not 
 expressly say that thin wine was inebriating is such a i>iece 
 of folly as cannot easily be equalled, because it is so easily 
 confuted. In his first Hoinily on the Statues, he says, of 
 ** those simple ones among our brethren, who, when they see 
 any persons .diagraciug themselves with drunkenness, instead 
 of reproving such, blame the fruit given them by God, and 
 say, * Let there be no wine.' Wo should say, then, in 
 answer to such, * Let there be no drunkenness ;' for wine is 
 the work of God, but drunkenness is the work of the devil. 
 Wine maketh not drunkenness, but intemperance produceth 
 it. Do not accuse that which is the workmanship of God, 
 but accuse the madness of a fellow-mortal." Again, in 
 Hom. xi. in Ep. ad Rom., with evident reference to John it 
 10, " Every man, at the beginning, doth set forth good 
 wiue ; and when men have well drunk (R. V. drunk freely), 
 then that which is worse ; but thou hast kept the good wine 
 until now." St. Chrysostom says : " For the drunken man 
 knows not how great the abominableness of bad wine ; but 
 the sober man knows this to a nicety." While I am here, 
 let me note that Dr. Samson claims Cocceius, the famous 
 Dutch divine, for his side. " In commenting on John ii. 10, 
 Cocceius remarks :" and then gives a long passage which 
 purports to be from his commentary. But the only words 
 there are, Laudat Vinum, simulque miratur consilium aponaij 
 qui tarn bonum vinum servaverit ad extremum. That's all I 
 5 
 
'' He praises the wine, and at the same time expresHes bis 
 Bui-pi'Lse at the policy of the bridcgiooin who had kept such 
 good wine to the last." Nor have I been able to fiud any- 
 where in Cocceius the words attributed to him. But, of 
 coui*se, twelve folios are nothhig to " the explorer of the folios 
 of universal Christian literature 1" One can hide a good 
 deal of ignorance and dishonesty in referring to half a dozon 
 lines supposed to be somewhere within the compass of 
 twelve folios. c ^ rX> ; , v ,, , >; .; ; 
 
 Dr. Joseph ITallf Bishop of Norwich. In the days of tlie 
 good bishop, 1574-1G56, no one dreamt of this craze, and in 
 his admirable Contemplationa it is only by inference that 
 wft should expect to find any statement of the intoxi- 
 cating })roperty of wine. Here are some sentences on tlie 
 marriage in Cana : "There was wine enough for a meal, 
 though not for a feast ; and if there were not wine enougli, 
 there was enough water ; yet the Holy Virgin complains of 
 the want of wine, and is troubled with the very lack of 
 superfluity. The bounty of our God reaches not to our life 
 only, but to our contentment : neither hath He thought 
 good to allow us only the bread of sufficiency, but some- 
 times of pleasure. .It is a scrupulous injustice {i.e., an in- 
 jurious scrupulosity) to scant ourselves, where God hath 
 been liberal... The munificent hand of God regards not our 
 need only, but our honest (respectable) affluence. It is our 
 sin and our shame, if we turn his favour into wantonness . . 
 That liberality hated to provide crab-wine for his guests." 
 But in his contemplation on Sampson, his opnosition to Dr. 
 Samson is not doubtfid : — " A drunken Nazarite is a 
 
35 
 
 monster among men. We have now mare icope than the 
 ancient : not drinking of wine, but drunkennoHH with wino 
 is forbidden to the Evangelical Nuzurito : wine, wherein ia 
 excess. Oh that ever ClniHtians should qttench the Spirit 
 of Ood with a liquor of God's own makituj ; that they should 
 sufTer their hearts to be drowned with wine, and should so 
 live, as if the practice of the Gospel were quite contrary to 
 the rule of the law." But clainiinj; " the critical " Arch- 
 bisliop Trench certainly caps the climax. Here are his 
 words : — '* Of a piece with this is their miserable objectio7i, 
 who find the miracle incredible, [see the words of Dr. 
 Patton, p. 89-93], since, if the Lord did not actually min- 
 ister to ail excess already commenced, yet, by the creation 
 of so huge and perilous a quantity of wino (for the quantity 
 was enormous), he should have put tem|)tations in men's 
 way ; as though the secret of temptation lay in the scanty 
 supply^ and not in the strong self-restraint /...Hwt man is to 
 be perfected, not by being kept oitt of teniptation, but 
 rather by bein^ victorious in temptation." Among his many 
 notes, he has this from St. Augustine, " the Ijord not merely 
 made wine, but, he adds, (Do Gen. ad Lit. 1, 6, c. 13) tale 
 vinum, quod ebrius etiam conviva laudaret," — *• such wino 
 as even a drunken guest could praise ;" making the ruler of 
 the feast himself to have ' well drunk' "1 He also quotes 
 Calvin as answering "excellently well" the objection 
 above made. I translate : " If His kindnesi is the 
 incitement to excess, it comes to pass through our fault : 
 but this rather is the true test of our temperance, 
 if, in the midst of affluence, we are njodcrate and 
 sparing." 
 
se 
 
 T think, after these exposnres, my readers are beginning 
 to feel, and moat justly, that the jHjnitentiary is aa likely 
 to ftirniHh us with examples of virtue as the Temperance 
 Publication Society, 
 
 Eph. V. 18 is enough, one might suppose, to overthrow the 
 Bible Temperance theory: "Be not drunk with wine, wherein 
 is riot" (Revised Veraion). It is not the use of wine that 
 is forbidden, but the being drunken with it It is absolutely 
 clear that the wine meant was intoxicating, and if the use of 
 such were contemplated as unlawful the command should 
 have been, " Dnnk no wine." But Dr. Samson holds that 
 "wherein" refers only to the word "wine," p. 176; and 
 that by these words St. Paul " had enjoined abstinence on the 
 church of which he had been pastor." p. 454. Were this so, 
 the words " be not drunken " would be simply absurd — they 
 would be utterly inapplicable. If the wine itself were the 
 evil thing, and not the drunkenness, "Do not drink "was 
 the proj»er charge. Dr. S.'s grammar is as absurd as the rest 
 of his trumpery learning. He assures us that Jerome under- 
 stood it as he does, and that he *' states that Paul declares 
 that the use of wine is in itself the road to hopeless abandon- 
 ment in a Christian." The best thing I can do is to let 
 Jerome speak for himself Here is his comment : " As we 
 cannot serve two mastens, God and Mammon, neither can we 
 at the same time h^ filled with the Spirit and with wine : for 
 he who infilled with the Spirit has prudence and gentleness, 
 modesty and chastity ; but he who is filled with wine has folly 
 and fury, frowardness and lust; all which I judge to be 
 expressed in one word by 'luxuria,* If certain persons had 
 
37 
 
 undoratootl tliisthoy "would never hiwc cliarged mc with rnali- 
 iieHH Hiul liereHy, because I said that if virginity were to he 
 kept, wine niuHt be declined by young people, and oil niust 
 not be caKt upon the flame, nor the natural heat of the flcHli 
 be increased by the incitements of ])leaHut-o. But it may be 
 {potest, is possible) it is the wine in which is the disaohite- 
 ness, and that is understood of which it is said in the Song of 
 Moses, Deut. xxxii. 32, 33: 'Their wine is the fury of 
 dragons, and the fury of asps that cannot be healed' (accord- 
 ing to Jerome's Latin) : for all who are drunken with the 
 thoughts of this world, drink and are road, and vomit, and 
 fall headlong; and as in the fable of the Lapitho) and the 
 Centaurs, rush to mutual destruction. To this wine that is 
 opposed which the Lord has promised to drink with us io 
 His kincdom." , , 
 
 The place for which St. Jerome was blamed is in Ep. 
 xxii., de vlryinitate servanda: " This 1 firat of all say, with 
 warning and urgency, that the 8}K>use of Christ must flee 
 wine as poison : these are the fii-st arms of the demons against 
 youth" <fec. The italicised words make qualifications out of 
 harmony with Dr. Samson's views, and it is plain that Jerome's 
 vehemently ascetic language awakened some feai*s in the 
 minus of soberer people. We shall see more of him later on. 
 
 But the Greek Fathers knew the grammar cf theii* own 
 speech as well as Dr. S., and they difler from him; as 
 Origen, in ElbVott's Commentary ; Clemens Alexandrinus, 
 " the unsaveableness of drunkenness," as he undei^stands it ; 
 with which compare these other words of his : Paed. ii. 2. 
 
" t)rui)kenness is the excessive use of wine ;" Tbeopliylact's 
 explanation is : *' That is, the immoderate use ;" and so 
 Theodoret and Chrysostom. In •' the master work of Poole," 
 as Di; Samson calls the Synopsis Critkorum, I count 
 eight learned post reformation divines taking the same 
 view ; and of English divines I find Bishop Ellicott, Dean 
 Alford, Bishop Hall, and the learned Henry Hammond, 
 going in the same track. I translate a few words from 
 Calvin : " When he forbids us to be inebriated, he prohibits 
 all abundant and immoderate potations. Just as if he said, 
 Be not intemperate in drink." The acute and spiritual 
 Bengel has : " In which wine, that is, as far as it is drunk 
 immoderately." Dr. Patton says : " In this place oinos most 
 ])robably (!) designates an intoxicating liquor." What is 
 the use of wasting common sense on people of that sort 1 
 This is far worse drunkenness than any saloon can produce. 
 Only note, that Doctors Samson and Patton confute each 
 other. 
 
 Acts ii. 13. In thirteen pages scattered through his book 
 does Dr. S. turn again and again to this text with some new 
 or the same device of perversion. Both the mockers and 
 the A\ ^tle Peter recognized the intoxicating power of 
 gleukosy '■ new wine," or else the mockery and the refuta- 
 tion were alike witless. I do not quote Dr. P., just because 
 he is absolutely unintelligible. D\\ N. Kerr has the grace 
 to say : " Of all the explanations none is satisfactory to my 
 mind." I suppose because they all recognize the fact that 
 gleukos is an intoxicant, and the admission would spoil the 
 symmetry of the doctor's theory. 
 
But I must not pass from this place without noticing a 
 testimonj' against them worth a ship-load of their rubbishy 
 learning. The Syriac Pesliito, tlie oldest version of the New 
 Testament, exhibiting equal familiarity with Greek and 
 Syriac, and made almost in the home of the sacred writers, 
 turns gleukos by meritho, for which see what I have already 
 noted, and it adds an explanatory clause, the whole thus 
 rendered by the Wesleyan Etheridge : " But others mocked 
 them, saying, These men have drunk new wine, and are 
 inebriate," 
 
 »/>_■ '.V-r* ««Vs« -., V- 
 
 There are two other places in the New Testament which 
 demand special attention. I will take first that which can 
 be more briefly despatched. 
 
 .V;« 
 
 1 Cor. xi. 21. Rebuking the drisordere of the Corinthian 
 Agap^f the Apostle says : " One is hungry and another is 
 drunken." In four several pages, 149, 151, 162, 175, Dr. 
 Sampon endeavours to escape the adverse inferences which 
 are inevitably drawn from this narrative, viz , that intoxica- 
 ting wine was customarily used, and even when grossly abused 
 was not forbidden, and that, too, in a sacred rite. His one 
 means of escape is that the Greek word properly means "sur- 
 feit or fullness," not drunkenness. Dr. Patton says the same, 
 Dr. Kerr says the same, and the Temperance ComT.entary, 
 which they obediently follow, had before them said the same. 
 It is utterly groundless, and no number of repetitions could 
 make it a whit more plausible. Fullness is, of course, a 
 secondary meaning of drunkenness, as the latter word implies 
 the former, but not vice versa. 
 
"••^ '.'.^ 
 
 Kothing but desperation could drive men to this contra- 
 diction of all authorities. But, they argue, the proper anti- 
 thesis to ''hungry" is "full," and not drunken. Dr. Kerr 
 claims Chrysostom and Bengel for this view. St. Chrysostom 
 expressly denies this interpi'etation. He says: "They had 
 passed into gluttony and drunkenness : wherefore he did not 
 say, one is hungry and the other is full, korennutai, but 
 methuei, drunken." And the modern Bengel says, "Ehrius 
 est."" "What sort of honesty or Christianity is Dr. K.'sl 
 Lightfooc thinks that the Corinthian carouse is to be ex- 
 plained by the customary excesses of the Passover. 
 
 ; This brings me to the last place I shall devote any space to. 
 In Luke xxii. 18 our Lord speaks of the Passover wine as 
 "the fruit of the vine." Fifteen times from first to last does 
 Dr. S. refer to this as decisive for his assumption ; and so 
 say they all. Dr. S. says: "The natural meaning, of course, 
 is, that it is the fresh product of the grape," p. 159. The 
 Temperance Commentary says : " Unfermented wine is, in 
 literal truth, and beyond all question, the only fruit of the 
 vine." N. Kerr, M. D., says: "Unfermented grape juice 
 can truly be called the fruit of the vine ; but, after fermen- 
 tation, the nature of the liquid is completely changed.* 
 Now, I ask, on the contrary, does not any man with the 
 least wit see that " the fruit of the vine " does not stand for 
 "grape-juice" either "naturally" or "literally?" that 
 the natural and literal fruit of the vine is graj^es, not grape- 
 juice 1 Do we call cider the fruit of the apple tree ? Hence, 
 reasonable peoi)le would enquire af\er some other meaning 
 for the unusual expression, for such it was. Now let me 
 
 . . -■■; 
 
■•^;^- 
 
 41 
 
 inform this tribe that *'the fruit of the vine" was the exact 
 technical term for fermented wine in the liturgical use of the 
 JewH. In the Mishna^ an oral tradition current in our 
 Lord's day, we read (de Benedictionibus, cap 6, pt. i., ]). 20, 
 Surenhusius) : " How do they bless for fruits 1 For fruits 
 of a tree they say, Thou who creat^st the fruits of the tree ; 
 except for wine (Khuts min hayyayin), as for wine they say, 
 Thou who Greatest tlie fruit of the vine." It is not then, most 
 clearly, the natural and literal fruit of the vine that is meant 
 by the phrase. This was the religious phrase ; and our 
 Lord on other occasions used the common term, wine. This 
 testimony is irrefutable. But it is to be further noted that 
 the use of wine formed no part of the original Passover insti- 
 tution, and so the Jewish reason assigned for its introduction 
 will assist here. Lightfoot gives it out of the Talmud, in his 
 Horse Hebraicse. in Matt, xxvii. 27 ; " A man must cheer up 
 his wife and children to make them rejoice at the festival. 
 And what do they cheer them up withal? With wine." 
 Again, in the Passover feast the cup was mixed, and the 
 reason expressly assigned for it in the Babylonian Talmud is, 
 that the wine was " very strong ; " and, as the Jerusalem 
 Gemara states, (Lightfoot, as above), to prevent the feasters 
 becoming drunk. Comment is superfluous. But I will add 
 some further testimony of a different sort to show that the 
 Passover wine was inebriating. Red wine, yayin edom, was 
 distinctly prescribed in both the Jerusalem and Babylonian 
 Talmuds, as may be seen in Lightfoot. This red wine is the 
 blood of the grape; but no unfeimented wine is red, not even 
 that made from the juice of the purple grape. The reason is 
 given in Miller's Chemi'stry. The colouring matter is in 
 6 
 

 the husks, and can be extracted only by alcohol and acid, op 
 wine. " Red grapes may be made to yield a white wine, if 
 the husks of the grape be removed from the must before 
 fermentation begins. * * But if the skins be left in the 
 fermenting mass^ the alcohol, as it is formed, dissolves the 
 colouring matter, producing the different shades of red wine." 
 The Jews, later on, thought it prudent to exchange this red 
 wine for white, in order to remove all pretext for the charge 
 that they drank Christians' blood at the Passover. But it is 
 asserted with endless iteration, and the most undoubting 
 confidence by Dr. Samson, et hoc genua oinne, that the Jews 
 did not, and do not use fermented grape-juice in the Paschal 
 rites. Now, in the Fresbi/terlaii Review for January, 18S2, 
 no less than ten most learned witnesses are adduced to the 
 contrary. Of the ten I will quote but one, as he is the most 
 renowned, and his words are the briefest. Dr.^Delitzsch, of 
 Leipzig, is surpassed by no one in his knowledge of Jewish 
 literature. His words are: "The wine of the Passover 
 has at all times been fermented wine, which, according 
 to the prevalent custom, was mixed with water." I shall 
 content myself and, I ho})e, my readeis, with one other 
 testimony, that of the learned Dr. Alfred Edorsheim, a 
 converted Israelite, now vicar of Loders, the late Warbur- 
 tonian lecturer, and the author of the late " Life of Christ," 
 on the author of which the general verdict has been, 
 " steei)ed to the li])S in Jewish lore." In a letter* to tho 
 Oxford ])rofessor, Dr. Bright, d.ited 15th September, 18S2, 
 he says : 
 
 "The wine used kJ, the Paschal Supper was un- 
 *Jn the London Guardian, 
 
:■■ 4. 
 
 doubtedly fermented and intoxicating. In point of fact 
 it did intoxicate. A number of instances are related in 
 Jer. Fes. p. 37c, <fec., in which certain Rabbis (who are 
 named) suffered in consequence. 
 
 *' In that part of the Talmud we Iiave exact data about the 
 amount of wine in the four cups ; its kinds, colour, and 
 mixture, and even about the size of the cups. 
 
 1 t ..; ) f; 
 
 "Again, in Jer Pesach p. 37t?, line 23 from the bottom, the 
 direction of the Mishna (Pes. x. 6) to the effect that it was 
 lawful to drink between the first and second, but not between 
 the third and fourth Paschal cups, is explained. * This for 
 fear of becoming drunk' ; it being added that such was not 
 to be apprehended in regard to drinking, between the first 
 and second cup, since the wine which was di'unk while people 
 ate rarely intoxicated, but it was otherwise with wine drunk 
 after food. 
 
 " Similarly, in the passage previously referred to (p. 37 col. 
 c.) it is stated that the cup need not be emptied at one 
 draught, as this might more easily intoxicate ; and that, to 
 avoid it, each cup might be emptied in several draughts. lu 
 fact, to avoid intoxicaHon, the Ppschal wine was almost 
 always * mixed ' (as it was the common custom in drinking 
 wine), the ordinary pj-oportion being two parts of water to 
 one of wine. But this does not seem to have been the 
 uniform proportion ; and strong wine was mixed in that of 
 three jjarts of water to one of wine. This mixing was 
 called mesiga^ and the mixed wine moeseg. In the Jer, 
 
 
Talmud (Pesach 37c), this roixturo is repeatedly referred 
 to in connection with the Paschal cups. And finally, to 
 prove this practice in the Mishnah (Pes. vii. 13), it is 
 directed that if two companies eat (the Paschal Supper) in 
 the same place, the one turns .ts face to the one side, the 
 ofher to the other, * and the kettle ' (for mixing the wine with 
 water) * stands between them.' ,„,> ^j > v ^ ^ ^T^jjit^jwif 
 
 ** Still further, to show that the natural fermentation of 
 wine could not possibly be ranked with leaven^ the principle is 
 distinctly laid down in the Talmud (Pes. 40 a, line 8 from 
 top) that *the juice of fruits does not produce leavening. 
 In the Mishnah (Pes. iii. 1) among the things by which the 
 Paschal regulations are infringed is mentioned Chometz 
 haoRflomi ' edomite vinegar,* which seems to have been a 
 kind of wine in which fermentation was produced (or in- 
 creased) by putting in barley ; and this seems at one time to 
 have been done with some sorts of wine in Judea (see Pes. 
 42 b, line 7, &c., from the top) : and such wine, but not 
 tllat by natural fermentation, would, of course, be inter- 
 dicted. 
 
 " Mr. Caine quotes a Mr. Frey. [So does Dr. Samson.] 
 All I can say is, that the words which he italicises are a 
 specimen of the usual mode of covering an inaccuracy by 
 boldness of assertion...! hope I have sufficiently established 
 that wine used at the Paschal Supper, and during the 
 week, was the ordinary fermented and intoxicating wine." 
 
 This is superabundant witness, and it particularily disposes 
 of that palmary argument of the ignorant, that as leaven was 
 forbidden, so fermented liquor must have been. The leaven 
 
or ferment was understood by the Jewa to bo confined to 
 grain, and not to extend to fruits.* With one invincible 
 
 •Dr. Samson quotes (248) Rev. Eli Smith as saying : " In 1835 I 
 called on the chief Rabhi of the Spanish Jews in Hebron, during the 
 passover week, and was tre^'^ed with unleavened bread and wine." 
 " When asked how this was consistent with abstinence from all 
 ferment, the Rabbi replied, that "the vinous ferment had passed, 
 and no sign of acetous ferment had appeared ; otherwise it would be 
 rejected." This, I believe, was a quite unnecessary, though 
 ingenious, reply of the Rabbi's, as must be inferred from the authori- 
 ties already presented; but curiously enough it exactly coincides 
 with an English medical man's explanation of the allowance of wine. 
 Dr. Spencer Thomson, an author of repute in medicine, argues in a 
 discourse on Temperance and total abstinence, that * ' the wine used 
 by our Lord at the institution of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper 
 must have been fermented wine, and settling that, would, with many 
 at least, settle the question of the lawfulness of the proper use of 
 wine * * Now the leaven-containing bread being thus interdicted, 
 nay the presence of leaven in any form, we must expect the rule or 
 principle to extend to the wine used at the passover as well as to 
 other things ; [we have seen he is mistaken here] ; but to use unfer- 
 mented wine would be to use what certainly contains leaven ia 
 abundance, whether that wine be fresh or boiled. It is only the 
 properly fermented wine, the "good wine," that is free from leaven 
 * * Fermentation, then, is an orderly process, fitted to transform 
 the thick, leaven-containing destructible grape-juice, into the clear, 
 aromatic, alcoholic, and, therefore, self-preserving wine, freed, if 
 properly prepared, from the forbidden leaven, for whatever reason 
 forbidden. I ask which would be the wine most likely, nay certain, 
 to be used at the Passover Feast by our Lord, the leaven-containing 
 non-alcoholic grape-juice, however prepared, or the true wine, drawn 
 oflf from the impurities, the " lees," it had deposited in its process of 
 purification ? I leave reason and common sense to answer the ques- 
 tion." The difficulty is unreal ; but as it is the extravagants who 
 raised it, it is beavitiful to s^e them " boiat with their own petard." 
 
< *' 
 
 46 
 
 witness on this head, I shall dismiss it. In the famous 
 Passover sauce called Kharoseth, used ever since the 
 Babylonian Captivity, vinegar was one of the prescriljed 
 ingredients Buxtorf, in his Talmudical Lexicon, after 
 enumerating them, says, " ea acetoque perfundobant " — 
 vinegar was poured over all. i / ♦ 
 
 I have now gone over all the principal points of the 
 Temperance Bible's Scripture argument, and let any honest 
 and intelligent reader judge if every contention of its dupes 
 has not been superabundantly confuted. 
 
4^ ^* . ' CHAPTER III 
 
 THE WITNESS OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY MISREPRESENTED 
 "I remember the days of old,"-' Psalm cxliii. 5. 
 
 Quite in accord with the unfounded assumptions respect- 
 ing the Holy Scriptures which I have had so wearisomely 
 to examine, is the monstrous folly of claiming the greatest 
 names of early Christianity as prohibitionists, that is, as 
 decrying any use of intoxicating wine. I shall follow Pr, 
 S.'s order. He begins with 
 
 Clement op Alexanduia, near the end of the second cen- 
 tury. Dr. S. expatiates on his fame and learning very justly, 
 and ends by saying that Clement's '• comments are especially 
 confirmatory of the fact that intoxicating wine was nor. used 
 by Christ, or introduced at the Lord's Suj)pei" in the early 
 church," p. 202. Space will not be wasted iu letting Clement 
 speak for himself. In the Pcechtf/ogus, lib. ii., c. 2, he begins 
 by noticing the Apostle's prescription to Timothy, " a little, 
 that he might know it to bo a remedy which, should he 
 drink to excess, would need another remedy." He next 
 points out the spiritual significance of " the mixture " in the 
 Eucharis^, and then goes on : "I therefore greatly admire 
 those who have adopted an austere life, and who desire only 
 water, the medicine of temperance, and flee wine as far as 
 possible, as they would the danger of fire. I judge, tlierefore, 
 that youths and maidens should for the most part abstain 
 
from thin medicine," as injuriouB to that hot aga He then 
 describes in hinguage too plain to be traushited the evil 
 results of diitiking in the young, observing that " this, the 
 yleukoa (new wine) of youth (i. e. the intoxication of animal 
 spirits) transgresses the bounds of mo<lesty." Again: "Those 
 who are in the flower of youth and dine in the daytime, 
 having a suitable meal, should totally abstain from wine " — 
 for physiological reasons that would not now be appreciated. 
 "And if there be thirst, let it not be relieved by much 
 water" — so that St Clemens could a})ply his temperance 
 lessons to iced-water and the non-alcoholic drinks now so 
 much in vogue. " But towards evening, about Bup[)er time, 
 wine may be used, when we are no longer engaged in more 
 serious readings. Then also the air becomes colder than 
 it is during the day, so that the failing natural warmth 
 requires to be nourished by the introduction of heat But 
 even then it must be only a little wine that is to be 
 used; for we must not go on to iutempemte ])otatious. 
 Those who are already advanced in life may paiiake more 
 hilariously (hilaroteron) of the bowl to warm by the harm- 
 l688 mei*' ine of the vine the chill of age." Again : " It is 
 best to n"'^ the wine with as much water as possible, and 
 not to havo recourse to it as to water, and so get enervated 
 to drunkenness, and not [X)ur it in as water from love of 
 ■wine. For both are wwks of God^ and on that account the 
 mixture of the two, water and wine, conduces to health." 
 Again : " With reason, therefore, the Apostle enjoins, * Be 
 not drunk with wine, wherein is much asotia,' intimating by 
 this word the inconsistence of drunkenness with salvation. 
 f'or if lie made wine at tfie marriagey lie did not (jive per- 
 
 \ 
 
,.-* 
 
 40 ■ :"• • 
 
 mis8\on to get Jrunk." One more qnotation : " In wlmt 
 manner do you tliink the Lord drank when ho became man 
 for our Bakes 1 As shamelessly as we 1 Was it not with 
 deconim and propriety 1 Was it not delil>erately 1 For, 
 rest assured, He Himself also partook of wine, for he, too, 
 was man. And He blessed the wine, saying, ' Take, drink ; 
 this is my blood ' — the blood of the vine. He figuratively 
 calls the Word 'shed for many for the remission of sins'— 
 the holy stream of gladness. And that he who drinks ought 
 to observe moderation, He clearly showed by what He 
 taught at feasts ; for he did not teach affected by wine. And 
 that ifc was wine which was the thing blessed, He showed 
 again, when He said to His disciples, * I will not drink of 
 the fruit of this vine, till T drink it with you in the king- 
 dom of My Father.' But that it was wine which was drunk 
 by the Lord, He tells us again, when He spake concerning 
 Himself, reproaching the Jews for their hardness cf heart. 
 * For the Son of Man,' He says, * came, and they say. Behold 
 a glutton and a wine bibber, a friend of publicans.' Let 
 this be held' fast by us against those who are called Encra' 
 tites," (i. e.) Temperance men. The sentences italicized '^viil 
 show how perfectly shocking is Dr. S.'s misrepresentation. 
 
 Tertulltan, a contemporary of Clement, is passed over 
 by Dr. S. ; but a sentence from his Apology, or Defence of 
 the Christians against the heathen, deserves to be quoted. 
 Describing the Agapee, or meals in connexion with the 
 Eucharist, he says " thoy drank as much as was useful for 
 modest men j" and when the meal was over " each one ia 
 summoned to come foi*ward, and sing to God as he is able 
 7 
 
from tlio ScripturcH, or from Mh own inliul. ITcnco proof is 
 artbided how bo lii»H boeii drinking," ■ '•»' > « ;' 
 
 CvPRiAN, Bisliop of Cartlingp, A.D. 250, and Martyr, is 
 next cliiinied. Dr, 8. wiyH " he argued at length for the use 
 of wine dihited jargely with water at tlie Lord's Supper." 
 That is, Cyprian is rej)resented aH contending for water. I 
 Rm not ohliged to deternune liow much of tliis ij mere 
 Btupidity, and how much perversity. The fact is this : Some 
 had celebrated the Eucharist in water alone, and Cyprian 
 iivrites a treatise against it in the form of a letter to a brother 
 bishop, CcEcilius. After many arguments, showing that the 
 mixed cup should be used, he says : " Whence it appears that 
 the blood of Christ is not offered if there be no wine in the 
 cup. But how shall we drink the new wine of the fruit of 
 the vine with Christ in the kingdom of His Father, if in the 
 sacrifice of God the Father and of Christ we do not offer 
 wine, nor mix the cup of the Lord by the Lord's own tradi- 
 tion 1 The Holy Spirit also is not silent in the Psalms on 
 the sacrament of this thing, when He makes mention of the 
 Lord's cup, and says, ' Thy intoxicating cup, how excellent 
 it is?' Now the cup which intoxicates is assuredly mingled 
 with wine, for water cannot intoxicate anybody." Later on 
 I shall continue this quotation, and let him declare what he 
 means by this inebriation. I only say now that Dr. S.'s 
 euggestio falsi is without a particle of foundation. Hia 
 ** largely " is a large falsehood ; and, if he were not a moral 
 pachyderm, he would not allow his printed sink of lies *o 
 circulate. 
 
■ «.' 
 
 OniGE.v (230) follo.vH (MiMuont i;i Dr. H. But why lie 
 refei-M to tliiH fainouH imiii at all is not oanily conjectured, 
 iinlesa as a provocative to more excoBsive falHoliood. Dr. 8. 
 wiys 1)6 " in e»]ually explicit ** as Clement : which iH true, but 
 not in tlio sense intended " He asserts that Noah did not, 
 and could not, beforehand, know the intoxicating influence 
 of wine, as is proved by tha word ' began to bo a Iiusband* 
 man.' He dwells on the fact that as in the case of the for- 
 bidden tree, only experience reveals the fact that * wine takes 
 away the mind.* " In this part of Origen's labours we have 
 but a few frngrnentary sentences : and o» Noah's drunken- 
 ness but six lines altogether in Lommatzsch's 18 mo. edition. 
 Here they are : '* Noah knew not the nature of the wine, 
 because he gets diiink ; and the Scripture bears witness of 
 this in saying. He began, and was naked .... Earthly 
 wine divests {giimnoi, makes naked) the mind of the know- 
 ledge of spiritual things. . . . Such was the fruit of the tree' 
 of the knowledge of good and evil, as the wine which made 
 Noah naked." What is there explicit in this for Dr. S.'a 
 dream 1 Where is the could not f What is said about 
 experience, much less dwelling on it ? But, in Ep. ad Rom. 
 Com. lib. X. 3, he quietly maintains the Apostle's view of the 
 indifference to a Christian of meats and drinks, and that it is 
 only our end and aim that gives a moral meaning to our 
 using or not using them, and that " we must drink, if by 
 this our brother is to be furthered in the faith," — et biben- 
 dum est, si per hoc proficit f rater ad fidem. (We have only 
 the Latin of Rufiuus here.) 
 
 Irenjeus (177) would have been far better omitted by 
 
Dr. S., as lie contributes nothing to liis book but another 
 occasion for misrepresentation. His " mingled on})," the 
 custom of the whole church in the Eucharist from the very- 
 beginning, is explained by Dr. S., as arising from the 
 ** acidity" of the grapes of southein Gaul, " which were pre- 
 pared with less care to prevent alcoholic fermentation ! " So . 
 much space far worse than wasted. Incidentally, however, 
 Irenaeus shows himself of different mind to Dr. S. ; for 
 expounding the parable of the vineyard iu Matt. xxi. he 
 makes the words, "he digged a wine- press " mean " he pre- 
 pared a receptacle for the prophetic Spirit," and later on 
 showing the fulfilment of the parabolic prediction in the 
 spread of the Church among the Gentiles, he says : " Every- 
 where are those who receive the Spirit." (Edit Massuet, p. 
 278). It is clear that he regarded wine as a apirituoua 
 liquor, and so a type of the quickening Sj)irit of God, 
 remembering probably also the prophetic intoxication sug- 
 gested by the words of the O. T., " this mad fellow,*' 
 irreverently said of a son of the prophets. ^, > j? , < kv a^«ifv^ 
 
 Justin Martyr (140) appeara to get two pages, but 
 nothing comes of it, save that on his authority we are told 
 there were Christian ascetics who abstained from flesh and 
 wine ; and Dr. S. turns aside to speak of 
 
 EusEBius (260-340). The subject of B. xii. c. 25 of his 
 Proeparatio Evangelica is that "the drinking of wine should 
 not be allowed to all." He quotes Plato who would exclude 
 slaves from the use of wine, and would interdict others at 
 certain times. He thinks that Moses anticipated Plato, in 
 
53 
 
 Lev. X. 8, 9, and Num. vi. 2, 3 ; and he quotes Prov. xxxi. 
 4, 5, according to the Septuapjint, which reads thus : " With 
 counsel do all things. With counsel drink wine. Rulers 
 are passionate; let them not drink wine lest" &c. He takes 
 St. Paul's advice to Timothy, 1 Ep. v. 23, as an example. 
 Out of his Ecclesiastical History, however, I present a narra- 
 tive which he calls " worthy of remembrance." It relates to 
 the confessors in the dreadful persecution at Vienne, Irenseus 
 being then a Presbyter there. Here it is : ** One Alcibiades 
 who was of their number, lived in an utterly sordid fashion, 
 and previous to this hardly partook of any food at all, using 
 only bread and water. But on his attempting to live in 
 prison in the same way, it was revealed to Attains, after he 
 had passed through his first conflict in the amphitheatre, that 
 Alcibiades would not do well in not using the creatures of 
 God, and in leaving a pattern of offence to others. Alcibi- 
 ades was persuaded, and partook of all things without fear, 
 and gave thanks to God." (Bk. v. c. 3). • « Y^*v^^*?f^ 
 
 i Lactantius (320) appears next in Dr. S.'s list, for no rea- 
 son but because he quotes Virgil, and Dr. S. finds much 
 about wine in Virgil — not to his purpose. And then ' ' ' 
 
 Epiphanius (320-404), only because he mentions various 
 Abstinence sects, who refused wine, flesh, and marriage; and 
 especially wine in the Eucharist. He mentions them but to 
 condemn them. 
 
 Athanasius (325), "like Eusebius, urged entire abstinence 
 from intoxicants as temperance," J3ut no proof is given of 
 
r-.': ,;- 
 
 
 64 
 
 this save the veiy queer one: "Orat. ad Gent. i. c. 34. 
 Some Egyptians, indeed, pour out wine in their libations to 
 their gods, but others only water ! " , ,. i,. v 
 
 ffi Jerome (6. 346) is the great authority of Dr. S., and 
 we have observed before the amount of support derived from 
 him. But Dr. S. refers us on p. 216 to Ambrose (de Sacvam. 
 1. iv.), Chrysostom (347-467) (Horn, in Matt. 83), and Augus- 
 tine (de Doctrina Christ, iv. ch. 21), who **all accorded in 
 commending the use of unintoxicating wine at the Lord's 
 Sapper." I do not possess the complete works of Ambrose, 
 but from what I know of him through such treatises of his as 
 I have read, I am very sure he is misrepresented. But I can 
 say this confidently of St. Augustine. In the chapter referred 
 to he gives examples of three styles of oratory, the suhduedt 
 the ternperatef and the majestic. His examples are taken from 
 Am':'rose and Cyprian, and he has absolutely nothing of his 
 own beyond the necessary words of introduction in each case. 
 One of his examples is from the Epistle of Cyprian to 
 Csecilius which we have before quoted from ; and Augustine's 
 only words about it are : " In this book (letter) he resolves 
 the question whether the cup of the Lord ought to contain 
 water only, or water mingled with wine." What are they 
 to say to thisi|,.^| :v' , '),*#,;-^- 
 
 We are referred to St. Chrysostom's 83 Horn, on St. 
 Matthew. Very well ; I translate from his observations on 
 xxvi. 29. " But why after His resurrection did He not 
 drink water but wine ? To pluck up by the roots another 
 mischievous heresy ; since there are certain -that use watey 
 
55 
 
 in the mysteries, and Ho meant to indicate that when He 
 delivered the mysteries He delivered wine ; and when He 
 had risen He prepared, apart from the mysteries, a ]^lain 
 poor table, using wine, which He calls the fruit of thcf vine. 
 Now the vine produces wine and not water. And hcv'uiy 
 sung an hymn they went out to the mount of Olives. Let all 
 those hear who, when they have eaten like swine, just kick 
 over their table, and rise up drunken ; when they ought to 
 pive thanks, and end with a hymn." Note especially what I 
 have quoted before from his fii-st Homily on the Statutes. 
 I will add a few words from his 19th Hom. on Ephes. v. 18, 
 " And immoderateness in this makes men wrathful, &c. . . 
 Wine was given for cheerfulness, not for drunkenness. . . Do 
 you wish to learn where wine is excellent 1 Hear the Scrip- 
 ture saying, * Give y^ne to the sorrowful, and strong drink 
 to those in pain.' With good reason, for it has power to 
 soften what is rough and sad, and to banish what is gloomy. 
 * Wine maketh glad the heart of man.' How then does 
 drunkenness spring from wine 1 for this thing cannot work 
 contradictory effects. Drunkenness is not then from wine, 
 but from immoderateness." 
 
 Dr. Samson's wild work with the Fathers here comes to an 
 end ; and I will end this chapter with a line from Prudentius, 
 a Christian poet of the fourth century. Of the miracle at 
 Cana he writes: ''Cantharis infusa lympha fit Falernum 
 nobile" — The water poured into the pots becomes nobla 
 Ealernian wine. r-fe ;\-y.^^; 
 
 Thus we see there is no particle of ground in ChiistiQi^ 
 
antiquity for this T<miperance delusion ; and we have seen 
 at the same time how base and unprincipled are the methods .; 
 by which it is sought to impose it on the understandings of ; 
 
 the unlearned, ,-, • : - l 
 
 '^' f' -:~: v-V'-''"' -•.i-■••^.^,^•n V;V^J*^5i:. ';.!■; .-i ..■ •^ ■ , ■, ;!. u.. X" M>.M*i^ i'^ c4 
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 ^?'^■^iJ&^i,^'^il:^iJv^;.■4■^•(^^ ■^i'/'-v.c-i'f>'i^' -'Si- 
 
 

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 '(?;, v'\^>v. .■ Vj.::,.V. .. .■■ . ■■■ ■■ -:..•♦;- ' r'^-<t.u;^ 
 
 r..^.:h\- .-■ /•-• ' ■■ CHAPTER IVt -^ "-'^'' ' .•^'■■v' -■^.".^'^' 
 
 THE WITNESS OF FACT CRYSTALLIZED IN CHRISTIAN 
 
 PHRASE. , ..„..,„,,, ,,, ^:.;)«^.y^-il 
 
 *'Et Calix meus inebrians quam prseclarua est !" 
 
 — Psalm xxii. 5, Vulgate* 
 
 "EtPoculum Tuum inebrians quam prseclarum est!" ±.. 
 
 — TJie Older Latin Version, ^^ . 
 
 4 I come now to an argument wliere I shall have no tor- 
 tuosities to track, no pervei'sities to chastise — just because it 
 has never been touched by'^einperance fanatics. It could 
 not be through ignorance, but because it could not he twisted 
 into any support for their delusion, and it is an invincible 
 objection to its claims. In the Church of the first centuries 
 there [)revarfied in her devotional language the custom of 
 representing the higher forms of spiritual joy and exaltation 
 as inebriation, and especially in connection with the Euchar- 
 istic cup. If the fact be established, the evidence is inevi- 
 table that that cup was literally inebriating, and, as such, 
 furnished the ground of this so-called figurative language. 
 Though this is alien to our modern matter-of-factness, and 
 especially to our Western coldness, it is not mere fancif illness, 
 but has its roots deep in nature and truth. Hence in Scrip- 
 ture everything in the natural world has its counterpart, or, 
 more strictly, its antitype, in the spiritual ; as, for example, 
 morning, night; sleeping, awakening; life, death; home, 
 exile ; wind, water, earth, bread, corn, wine, oil The Ger- 
 
■i^:i ',■;"■■—•''' .■''■^•' ■■'■•', '. -''^^ 
 
 Ml 
 
 ■ ■ 58 
 
 man Lutliartlt well says : " It is not mcro comparison ; but 
 the spiritual is the true and the real. What is earthly is 
 only a type. The natne belongs truly and exactly to what is 
 Bpiritual. The earthly thing corresponds to the name only 
 inexactly and in an incomplete manner." And so Mrs. 
 Browning, in Aurora Leigh : 
 
 ' W'-'i 
 
 "A two-fold world 
 Must go to make a perfect cosmos. Natural things 
 And spiritual." . . ~ 
 
 The "two-fold man," she says, "fixes still 
 ' - ' The type with mortal vision, to pierce through, 
 ij •♦ With eyes immortal, to the antitype :•: < ' 
 
 r i... Some call the ideal — better called the. real, , ^ > ,' • »' 
 ^ And certain to be called so presently, 
 
 When things shall haye their names. " 
 
 What has been above quoted from Cyprian is a very clear 
 examjde of the religious use of the word inebriate^ and a 
 BuflBcient explanation of the grounds of that use. It is to be 
 observed too, that this use is taken directly from Scripture, 
 as in the xxiii Psalm. Nor let the old Latin, whether 
 Jerome's or the Old, be thought absurd. The Septuagint is, 
 " and thy cup is inebriating as the best wine ;" and the 
 Syriac, as translated in the Hebrew Student, renders " my 
 cup intoxicating even as ardent wine." 
 
 The gladdening effect of wine whenever spoken of in scrip- 
 ture, they interpreted of spiritual and eucharistic joyji^as Ps, 
 civ. 15, " wine that maketh glad the heart of man ;" Eccles. 
 ix. 7, " Eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a 
 
59 
 
 merry heart ;" Cant. ii. 5. " He brought me to the banquet- 
 ing house," Marg. " house of wine ;" v. 2. " I have drunk 
 my wine with my milk : eat, friends, drink, yea, drink 
 abundantly, O beloved," Mai-g. " and be drunken ;" Zech. 
 ix. 15, " They shall drink, and make a noise as through wine ; 
 and they shall be filled like (Heb. the) bowls, and as the 
 . corners of the altar," plainly a sacred comparison, as it is a 
 prediction of Christ s blessings; Psal. xxxvi. 8, "They shall 
 be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house," Vu'g. 
 " inebriabuntnr ;" Septuagint, methustheaontai, shall be made 
 drunken ; Syriac, nerwurt, the same ; and who can tell what 
 high meaning our Lord intended by the words, " I will drink 
 no more of this fruit of the vine, until I drink it new with 
 you in the Kingdom of My Father]" With such a ground 
 in Scripture we need not be surprised at the phraseology 
 which arose in the Church ; of which I now proceed to give 
 examples. 
 
 Clemens (A.D. 190), as we have seen, calls the Eiicharis- 
 tic cup " the holy stream of gladness." ' 
 
 ^ Cyphian (A.D. 250) has been already quoted amply. 
 
 ; ;, Origen (A.D. 230) on Ps. xxxvi. says : " This inebriation 
 IS good." But in Hom. vii. in Lev. x. 8-11, he has many 
 jrages, in which he earnestly moralises on the evil of drunken- 
 ness. " But, he adds, if we discuss in how many ways the 
 human mind is inebriated, we shall find that even these are 
 drunken who seem to themselves sober. For anger inebriates 
 the mind, and fury makes it worse than drunken, if indeed 
 
60 
 
 anything can be beyond drunkenness. Desire and avarice 
 make a man not only drunken, but even rabid. And obscene 
 lusts inebriate the soul, as on the contrary hohj desires in- 
 ebriate it, but with that holy ebriety of which one of the holy 
 men has said, Thy inebriating cup, how good is it ! But 
 envy and jealously macerate the soul beyond all dnmken- 
 ness." Origeu insists that our Lord literally complied with 
 the charge given to the sons of Aaron. He drank wine dur- 
 ing His life, so as to be called a wine-bibbei*, but when He 
 came to the altar, i.e. to offer Himself, He said He would not 
 drink of the fruit of the vine till after His resurrection, 
 Origen understanding Him not to have partaken of the cup 
 which He gave to His disciples. 
 
 Athanasius (A.D. 325) says briefly on Pa xxiii. " This 
 is the joy of the mysteries." 
 
 Ambrose (374) on Psal. xxxvi. §. 19, says, " There is an- 
 other ebriety through the infusion of the Holy Spirit. They, 
 lastly, who in the Acts spake in divers tongues seemed to the 
 hearers full of new wine." •* For the imperfect is the draught 
 of the milk, for the perfect the table of refreshment, of which 
 he said (quotes Ps. xxiii.) * * where also is the inebriat- 
 ing cup, whereby sins are washed away or effaced. Good 
 is the ebriety of the saving cup." In Ps. cxix. letter 13, §. 
 24. " When He hath by divine preaching inebriated the 
 veins of our earth, or soul and mind, He awakeneth earnest- 
 ness for different virtues, and maketh to grow the fruits of 
 faith and pure devotion, whence truly it is said to Him, 
 * Thou visitest the earth and inebriatest it j' fov by taking 
 
61 
 
 V of our flesli He visitctl, that lie might lical the sick ; Ke 
 inebriated with spiritual joy, that He might, by His pleasaut- 
 ness, soothe the harassed." . . , . . :>y :, , 
 
 In the same place : ** Blessed inebriation which maketh the 
 raind in a way to go forth out of itself to things more excel- 
 lent and joyous, that our mind, forgetting anxieties, may 
 be gladdened with the wine of pleasantness. Excellent 
 .. inebriation of the Spiritual Table." On Ps. i. "Blessed 
 inebriation, which infuseth joy, bringeth not confusion ; 
 blessed inebriation, which stablisheth the walk of the sober 
 mind; blessed inebriation, which bedeweth with the gift of 
 eternal life," <fec. ,,,.. 
 
 ■ Theodoret (430) an unimaginative and sober writer, says 
 on Ps. xxiii. : " This is plain to the initiated (Communi- 
 cants), and needs no interpretation. For they know that 
 inebriation which strengtheneth and relaxeth not." On 
 Hos. xiv. 5, 6 : " Because our Lord Himself is our corn and 
 i wine, whosoever believeth in Him is said to be inebriated." 
 On Ephes. v. 18: "Casting out the injurious ebriety, he 
 brings in the spiritual." 
 
 Jerome (b. 346) Ep. ad Hedib. : " Let us go up with the 
 Lord into the large upper room, and let us receive from Him 
 lip there the cup of the New Testament, and keeping there 
 with Him the Passover, let us be inebriated with the wine 
 of soberness." On the words before quoted from the Canti- 
 cles be observes : "And so will their inebriation be accept- 
 able as the sacrifice of the Altar, and as the horns or corners 
 of th*? Altar." 
 
, dREGORY Nyssen (Bp. 370) ou Ciuiticlcs ! "Tlioy ard 
 inobiiated, as says the j)roi)hecy, Ps. xxxiv. 8." So, says he, 
 was David wlieii he saw in an cctaay that beauty, <fcc., and 
 cried, " Every man is vanity." So was Paul, he says, when 
 he said, " whether we be beside ourselves, it is unto Cod."' Of 
 St. Peter's Trance in Acts x., he says: ** Peter was at the 
 same time hungry and drunken. . .a Divine and sober drunk- 
 enness by which he went out of himself," &c. 
 
 Paul, Bishop of Emesa, (430) "a drunkenness which ia 
 the mother of temperance." 
 
 TiiEOPiiANES (820), "a sober drunkenness." "To be 
 drunken with a temperate ebriety." 
 
 Basil (370) discourses at large on tliis "ebriety, the mother 
 of temperance." It is beautiful, but too long to copy. 
 
 Macarius (370). ** If the Holy Spirit was so liberally 
 given under the Old Testament, how much more under the 
 New, where was made the effusion of the Holy Spirit even 
 to ebriety." Twice he has (rendered literally) " We have 
 been intoxicated into the Deity, and replenished and bound 
 by the Holy Spirit." 
 
 The late Dean Stanley's phrase, used of the pantheist 
 Spinoza, is to the same effect — **a God-intoxicated man." 
 
 Chrysostom (347-407) on Eph. as above, " admirable is 
 this ebriety .. which begets temperance not paralysis .. the 
 unpolluted cup of the Lord's blood." 
 
 ^ 
 
Augustine (born 354) hIiuH Imvc a fuller quotation, as he 
 explains tlio reason of tliis niannor of speech. On Pa. xxxvl he 
 Bays : "The Psalmist sou<^ht a word whereby, tlirough human 
 things, he might express what he wouhl say, and because he 
 saw men immersing themselves in excessive drink, receive 
 wine without measure, and lose their minds,- he saw what he 
 should say, because, when that ineffable joy shall be received, 
 the human is in a manner lost, and becometh Divine, and is 
 inebriated with the richness of the House of God." On P& 
 civ. : " Lot no one look to be inebriated, yea, let every one ; 
 Thy inebriating cup, how excellent is it. We would not 
 say, Let no one be inebriated. Bo inebiiated ; but see well 
 wherewith. If the excellent Cup of the Lord inebriateth you, 
 that inebriation will be seen in your works, in the holy love 
 of righteousness, in the alienation of youi' mind, but from 
 things earthly to heaven." In his Confessions I. v. : " Who 
 will give me that Thou mayest come into my heart, and 
 inebriate it, that I may forget my miseries, and embrace 
 Thee, my only God?" 
 
 This is enough for early days. Is it not as clear as the sun 
 at noon-day that the Christian Church knew nothing of a 
 Communion Wine that was unintoxicating, since the settled 
 phrase of Christians was grounded on the contrary 1 I will 
 add a few later examples : 
 
 St. Bernard (1130) even of our Lord : "Was He not 
 drunken with the wine of charity, and forgetful of Himself,, 
 in opposition to Peter's counsel, that be far from Thee, 
 hordV And a little after, npeaking of the character of a 
 true Shepherd of the flock of Christ : " He who rules over 
 
04 
 
 othors Blioultl be utterly inebiiutcd with the wine of cliarlty, 
 nnd forgetful of hiiiihulf " De DiversJH, xxix. "... .cluuity — 
 for which thou seemcst for a while to be forgetful of thyself 
 with a sort of sober drunkenness." Scr. iii. in Epiph. ad fin. 
 
 ■"7 
 
 . St. Anselm (1095).— "0 Fountain of Life,.. ..make my 
 80ul drunk with the sober drunkenness of Thy love, that I 
 may forget whatever is vain and earthly, and may keep Thee 
 alone contintmlly in my memory." '* Beautiful/' says Julius 
 Hare, who translates the prayer in full. ; 
 
 / AucnBisnop Leighton, of Glasgow, (1611-1684), was 
 inferior to none of these in learning, taste, and Christian 
 elevation. In his well-known commentary on St. Peter, ho 
 says: "Yea, the Lord doth sometimes fill those souls that 
 converse much with Him with such beatific delights, such 
 inebriating sweetness, as I may call it, that it is in a happy 
 manner drunk with these : and the more it enjoys of this, 
 the more is the soul above base intemperance in the use of 
 tiie delights of the world. As common drunkenness makes 
 a man less than a man, this makes him more; that sinks him 
 below himself, and makes him a beast, this raises him above 
 himself, and makes him an angel." 
 
 Giles Fletcher, an admirable poet of the seventeeth cen- 
 tury, in his Christ's Victory, has 
 
 ** And dniiik with nectar-torrents, ever hold 
 Their eyes on Him. " 
 
 This language of all the Christian centuries could not have 
 
60 
 
 Arisen if our fathera in the faith held with our modern Manl- 
 cheans, and it is an invincible proof of the novelty and 
 impietj of the doctrines about wine now thrust upon us. ^ 
 
 From tluH also may be at once seen the propriety of this 
 imagery (if it be such, and not the reality) to represent the 
 effect of wrath and misery, as well as of mercy and joy, in 
 great degrees ; as both extremes take men out of their ordi- 
 nary selves, and are beyond the common conditions of human 
 life See, under Shechar, the numerous reference?, and of 
 them particularly^Isa. xxix.^9, and compare verse 10, "drunk- 
 en, but not with wine," but with the stupor of spiritual 
 dulnews and insensibility. In li. 17: "Awake, awake, stand 
 up, Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord 
 the cup of His fury ; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup 
 of trem])ling, and wrung them out;" and verses 21, 22: 
 *' Hear now, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine 
 . . . . T have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, 
 even the dregs of tlie cup of My fury. . . .but I will put it 
 into the hand of thom that afflict thee." Plainly, she was 
 beside hei*self with the miseries which her own sins and God's 
 displeasure had brought upon her ; but God will cause this 
 unhappiness to end, and will make her enemies taste it in 
 even greater measure — to the very kst drop, down to the 
 very dregs. So Ps. Ixxv. 8, and He v. xiv. 40. For the 
 wicked is the intoxicating cup of God's wrath, which throwa 
 them into an ecstasy of misery. 
 
 Even oomnion eveiy-duy speech employs the word intoxi- 
 cate in this double w»y; "intoxicated with Joyi" ''intoxicated 
 9 
 
C6 
 
 with pride;" "in an ecstasy of delight," "in an ecstasy of 
 de«pair;" "a transport of rage," "a transport of devotion.** 
 
 Here is a plain fact embedded in the Church's speech for 
 more than two thousand years. It needs no ingenuity to 
 make its witness clear, nor can any ingenuity obscure it. 
 With one word I dismiss this point : the Christian Church 
 did not invent this phraseology ; she found it ready to her 
 hand in the Hebrew Scriptures of prophet and psalmist, and 
 she only continued its use. ; 
 
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 i 
 
 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 TEMPERANCE MISUSE OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 *' The Law is good, if a man uae it lawfully." — St. Paul. 
 
 The misuse of Scripture by the fanatical party of the total 
 abstainers is as wide as their sect, for that they have become 
 or are becoming, building up walla of separation between 
 themselves and their fellow Christians. Some of the most 
 glaring cases T shall notice later on, but at preseit 1 confine 
 myself to two texts, viz. Rom. xiv. 21. " It is good neither 
 to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy 
 brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak ;" and 
 1 Cor, viii. 13, " If meat make my brother to offend, I will 
 cat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother 
 to offend." Two difierent classes of persons use these texts, 
 and will have to be answered differently. The extremists 
 hence infer an inexorable law of abstinence, simple abstainers 
 a counsel of perfection, while the result aimed at by both is 
 a " universal abstinence." Alas for the fatal facility of such 
 a conclusion ! The words with which St. Ohrysostom begins 
 his homily on Rom. xiv. 1, " Him that is weak in the faith 
 receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations," apparently find 
 no response in teetotal understandings : " I am aware that 
 what is here said is to many hard and obscure." But de- 
 ferring that general survey which he says is therefore neces- 
 sary, I observe 
 
68 
 
 1. That the temperance conclusion is far '^ntside the 
 premises ; that " flesh " and " wine " are spoken of in the 
 same breath, are placed on the same footing, and conse- 
 quently that the scruples of vegetarians and teetotallera are 
 equally entitled to consideration. No one doubts the con- 
 tempt which our carnivorous Canadian has for the weakness 
 of the former, at the cost of logical consistency. 
 
 2. But let us look at the case the Apostle is dealing with. 
 In the Roman Chureh were some Jewish Christians who had 
 not yet grasped the full import of Christianity, and so were 
 hampered by scruples about Levitical distinctions of days and 
 meats ; or, possibly, they may have been merely ascetics, 
 without reference to the Law, which did not forbid wine. 
 The Gentile Christians had no such scruples. They knew 
 that "all things are clean," and ate all foods with good con- 
 science. But, as knowledge without charity pufieth up, 
 these stronger Christians threw scorn on the weak, and so 
 tempted them to apostasy. Now in dealing with this case, 
 the Apostle passes no censure on the eating, nor does he forbid 
 it ; he only condemns the strong for despising the weak. 
 Again, he does not praise abstaining, but he does forbid the 
 abstainera to "judge," or condemn the non-abstainers, and 
 that, too, with a tone of unusual and indignant severity. 
 
 3. Hence neither eating nor abstaining is to be blamed, 
 but scorning on the one side, and condemning on the other. 
 The sum of the matter is, that though the J v's scruple was 
 ridiculous, he was to be humoured in it, as the Greek word 
 for " receive ye " implies, in the judgment of ancients and 
 
C9 
 
 motleins alike. Indeed, Sfc. Cbrysostoni's comment on tlie 
 word is '* shewing that the thing was to be utterly laughed 
 at." Yet it was " good," that is an excellent thing, 
 though no matter of compulsion, to abstain in those cases 
 where eating and drinking might prove a danger to the faith, 
 and so to the salvation of the scrupulous. But, be it observed, 
 that while commending this voluntary abstinence, it is still 
 maintained that "all things are clean." These are the facts ; 
 and can any o.ae who is not the victim of a hopeless halluci- 
 nation imagine that St. Paul was willing, much less desirous, 
 that the Roman Church should be turned into a Vegetarian 
 Society, thus exposing it to the derision of the world, and 
 imj)erilling its existence ? This would have been absolutely 
 the result, if his words were unde stood and prevailed accord- 
 ing to the mind of the teetotal fanatics. But it was impos- 
 sible, for two reasons : (a) So meaning the Apostle would 
 have acted in the worst spirit of sectarianism, for he would 
 bo setting up his private opinion against that of the Church ; 
 he would have been opposing that very decree which he had 
 assisted in promulgating, and whi h was made with so great 
 a sanction : »* It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us." 
 This charter of the Gentile Churches left free the use of 
 *•' flesh," excepting only meats offered to idols,things strangled, 
 and blood." I ask the most extravagant abstainer to say 
 now, if he dare, that St. Paul contemplated the general 
 imposition of abstinence from flesh in the Koman Church ; 
 and if he did not, where is the propriety of the customary 
 application 1 (6) But there is another reason. So meaning 
 he would have contradicted his own principles and his express 
 wovds. When, elsewhere, the Jewish Christians would 
 
70 
 
 impose their rifcos and scrnjdes on the conscience of their 
 Gentile brethren as of necessary and permanent obligation, 
 St. Paul would not listen to them for a moment. He 
 could, in the case of Timothy, allow of cii'cumcision, to 
 smooth and prosper his ministry among Jewish Christians, 
 and at Rome yield much in the matter of meats ; but once 
 there was a whisper of obligation, the Apostle became 
 immovable as a rock. When he went up to Jerusalem, 
 (Gal. ii.), the citadel of Jewish prejudices, and brought 
 Titus, a Greek, with him, he stoutly refused to have him 
 circumcised at the demand of the Judaizers. who made cir- 
 cumcision a necessity, and so destroyed the truth of the 
 Gospel ; though under otjer circumstances he would have 
 as graciously yielded, as in the case of Timothy. Again, at a 
 later day, in the Colossian Church, where an asceticism was 
 rampant, grounded on the old Pei-sian Dualism, of which our 
 Anti-wineisin is but an after math, the Apostle did not flinch 
 from the most open hostility to it. Their dogmata or ordi- 
 nances, " Handle not, nor taste, nor touch,," " Are not of any 
 value against the indulgence of the flesh;" or, as many under- 
 stand it, rather make for the indulgence of the flesh. And 
 such is the "poison" dogma; it does not beat down the 
 carnal temper, but gives it a new opening for gratification in 
 glorying over " moderate drinkers." And now that this 
 revived Manicheism is making many to stumble, it has 
 become a serious duty to resist it. It is perfectly clear, then^ 
 that St. Paul is not to be understood in the line of the 
 extremists. 
 
 4. But there is the other side, who, adopting a lower 
 
tone, interpret the Apostle's words as but a counsel of 
 perfection. This is nearer the truth. Now, counsels of per- 
 fection are for particular persons and particular occasions, 
 and they would wholly lose their character were they made a 
 law for all. The very phrase of the Apostle shows that he 
 is to be understood in this limited sense: "It is good neither 
 to eat flesh," &c. With which comi)are 1 Cor. vii. 1, " It is 
 good for a man not to touch a woman," a counsel of celibacy, 
 not a prohibition of marriage, under special circumstances. 
 So that the much-abused text makes no more for prohi- 
 bitionist or abstinence aims than would 1 Cor. vii. 1, for the 
 abolition of matrimony. The scrupulous at Rome were 
 clearly not a strong party, and the Apostle would deal 
 tenderly with them ; but the chief point to be observed is, 
 that it was individual cases and persons he had in view. 
 If any will candidly read through the whole chapter, he will 
 clearly perceive this, which is summarily expressed in chap. 
 XV. 2. *' Let each one of us please his neighbour for that 
 which is good unto edifying." It is a rule for the non- 
 abstainer in his occasional social intercourse with an abstainer, 
 and not a law for the body of the Church. This is still more 
 evident from 1 Cor. viii., where the case is the same, onlv 
 that at Corinth the scruplers were Gentile converts, v?^hi\e 
 at Rome they were Jews. In chap. x. the Christian is 
 encouraged and directed to eat at a heathen neighbour's table 
 whatever flesh is set before him, or at home whatever was 
 sold in the shambles ; thus securing against any mi9Concei> 
 tion the charitable counsel given us in chap. viii. for indi- 
 vidual cases. The decree which forbade to Christians meats 
 offered to idols is expressly sustained in x. 28, but all outside 
 
72 
 
 tliat is free to the Clirhtian ** conscience ; " but for himself, 
 the Apostle says, lie would never in any special case, 
 where it was likely to be hurtful to a brother, eat flesh ; 
 and what he expresses in a charitable hyperbole, I have 
 expressed in homely words according to the true meaning. 
 
 5. Now degenerate as our Christianity may be deemed, this 
 rule is very generally observed. Non-abstainers of ordinary 
 heedfulness, to say nothing of conscientious Christians, if they 
 chance to have at their table a weak brother who is set off by 
 a glass of wine or spirits, neither offer it nor produce it. This 
 is done as duty and charity, and accords with the letter 
 of our two texts. But if any would impose this abbtinence 
 on our conscience as a universal rule, we remind them of the 
 bad company in which this self-same Apostle puts those who 
 " command to abstain from meat," who would turn a tempo- 
 rary concession into a lasting bondage ; they are classed 
 with "those who fall away from the faith, giving heed to 
 seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in 
 hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron ;" 
 and he insists that " every creature of God is good, and noth- 
 ing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving." It 
 was from this that Shakespeare borrowed 
 
 " Good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used." 
 
 A voluntary abstinence may be useful, or virtuous, or 
 chantable ; but we should resist to the death the attempt 
 which is now so vehemently made to entangle us in the 
 slavery of a Jewish superstition, or, more truly, the Mani- 
 oheau heresy. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 SPECIMENS OF TEXTS PERVERTED. 
 
 *' Tlie Devil saith unto Him, It ia written." — St. Matthew, 
 
 " The sword of the spirit, which is the woid of God," is a 
 weapon that the world often snatches at, and would fain turn 
 against God. But in vain. It fits no hand but that of a 
 spiritual man. In othera hands it is sure to turn and harm 
 the cause in which it is sought to wield it, as Satan found to 
 his cost, and as self-willed and tyrannical philanthropists will 
 certainly one day find no less certainly. 
 
 Deuteronomy xxxii. 32, 33, of this Dr. Samson says, 
 faithfully followed, of course, by Dr. Patton : " The terms 
 in which Moses (1) commenting on his own record (2) 
 characterizes the wine with which Noah was (3) drugged, 
 calling it * the wine of Sodom, the poison of dragons,' indi- 
 cates (sic) the (4) recognition of the two classes of wines, 
 intoxicating and unintoxicating, which he (5) makes through- 
 out his connected writings." So write they all ! Here are 
 five absolute falsehoods, which I have numbered. (1) has no 
 excuse whatever. " The song of Moses," as any one may see 
 who will read it, is a sort of proplietic history of Israel from 
 the beginning to the end — " ad resurrectionem," as Dr. S.'s 
 authority, Cocceius, somewhat extravagantly says ; so that 
 the story and the times of Noah are necessarily left out. (2) 
 Consequently there can be no '• characterising" where there 
 10 
 
74 
 
 IS not so much as mention. (3) " Drugged," in the custom- 
 ary use of the word, is an absurd fancy, and contradicts what 
 Dr. S. quotes from Origen. (4) Has been sufficiently shewn 
 to be pure assumption, as also. (5) Suppose for a moment that 
 simply intoxicating wine were meant here ; then, besides a 
 more than poetical extravagance of language, all the miseries 
 of apostate Israel are laid to this one cause, of the correctness 
 of which every reader of the Bible can judge. 
 
 " Their vine is of the vine of Sodom " must refer to .Israel 
 or to others. In the " master work of Poole " two refer it 
 to others, nine to Israel ; and so of later commentators — 
 Patrick, Rosenmueller, Wordsworth, Maurer. The vine 
 represents the Hebrew church, or nation, for which please 
 read Ps. Ixxx. 8, 14; Jer. ii. 21, where the margin refers 
 you to the place in Deuteronomy; Isa. v. 1-7. But Israel 
 became a degenerate vine, apostatised from God, so as to 
 deserve to be called a " vino of Sodom," as in Isaiah's day he 
 called her rulers "Sodom rulers," i. e., as bad, as corrupt, as 
 deserving of irreparable overthrow; and Israel's works, \he 
 wine of this vine, were of the utmost moral malignity, and 
 were properly likened to the deadly poison of the most des- 
 tructive creatures. It was allowable enough in the ascetio 
 and rhetorical Jerome, and, indeed, would be in a matter-of- 
 fact writer now, to accommodate Moses's words to the bad 
 eflfects of drunkenness ; but to assume repeatedly that they 
 were Jirst spoken in this connection is to insult the common 
 sense of men, and to make a fool of Moses. 
 
 Proverbs xxiii. 29-35. This is referred to seven times in 
 
75 
 
 Dr. S/s pages, and he says: "These are unqualified in their 
 declaration," p. 25. And so say they all. I refer the reader 
 to the Bible for this long passage. The catalogue of evils 
 here are referred by the coniiptere of reason and Scripture 
 to wino, instead of to drunkenness. I have before me a 
 Sunday School Ijosson, filling nearly two pages of a religious 
 newspaper, which is one elaborate [jervei-sion, and which will 
 one day, when the juvenile mind works for itself, help on a 
 terrible revulsion : it is from " International Lessons, 7th 
 December, 1884." Now the wise man answers clearly his 
 own question, "Who hath woel" &c,; and he does not say, 
 *' Those who drink wine," but '■'■They that tarry long at tlie 
 wine.*' First ol all, it is not a single drinking bout that 
 works the mischief ; for the verb tarry is in the participial 
 form, meakharivif signifying those who are in the habit of 
 such long and late drinking, and this is represented in the 
 translation by long; and so Fuerst, under the verb akhar^ 
 renders "tarry late." Indeed, tarry would be enough, 
 but it so clearly means a long sitting that translators feel 
 bound to emphasize that point. So Maurer, one of Dr. 
 S 's authorities, explains by ad multam noctem potant, 
 " drink far into the night." Then, as an aggravation of all 
 this, such peraons are further described, " l^iey that go to 
 seek mixed wine." They want still stronger drink, which 
 they will take any trouble to siek out. The word implies, 
 according to Fuerst, " finding out by minute and persevering 
 investigation : " with which very well accords Moses Stuart's 
 explanation of the other participle baim, not simply " go," 
 but who are in the habit of " enteiing in " to the houses of 
 sale. Here, then, is, in one short verse, a perfect picture of 
 
\y 
 
 T6 
 
 the must abandoned drunkard, and all that is said of him is 
 applied calmly to such as drink at all ! Is not this an 
 unpardonable wiokeJiiess 1 done, too, in the name of reli- 
 gion I Then this precious " Lesson " disowns religion by 
 sayinf* (its own italics) " There is only one safeguard against 
 the danger of drunkenness, total abstinence from alcoholic 
 drinks." " That, and that alone, is a certain safeguard." 
 Ti-ue, it puts in a parenthesis, for propriety's sake in a S. S. 
 Lesson, "under the grace of God," — though why, it is not 
 easy to see the necessity of, if we have so much security 
 without it : for it adds, drunkenness " to him who tastes not 
 is impossible." The Lord deliver our S. S. scholars from 
 this miserable unchristian Yankee teaching 1 " Look not 
 upon the wine," is the wise and necessary charge to such a 
 drunkard. For such an one reason and religion combine in 
 saying his safety lies in abstinence ; and no more can be 
 made of it. 
 
 It is interesting to observe how strongly the Septuaginfc 
 has marked all the qualifications : — ^' Who tarry over their 
 wine-bouts — track out where drinks are made — be not 
 drunken in your wine-bouts — if thou give thine eyes to the 
 bowls and cups." All which befits a drunkard only. 
 
 Isaiah v. 11, is similarly abused, and similarly rescued 
 from the hands of the abusers. "Woe unto them that rise 
 up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; 
 that continue until night till wine inflame them." V. 22. 
 *' Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wme, and men 
 of strength to mingle strong drink." "God's woes are 
 
77 
 
 tliundereJ upon the tlriukers of wine and strong think," 
 says one of these reckless writers. No ; but ui)on, in this 
 place, determined drunkards ; who make a business of drink- 
 ing from the "break of day' till the "twilight;" (see the 
 lexicons under holcer and nesheph) ; the purpose of whose life 
 is to pursue drink ; who are mighty, yea, heroes in the way 
 of drinking. Yet the sober and the abstemious are put on 
 a level with such sinners by these adulterators of God's 
 word 1 In this same chapter are some other " woes " that 
 should find more place in temperance books : " Woe unto 
 them that call evil good, and good evil ; that put darkness 
 for light, and light for darkness ; that put bitter for sweet, 
 and sweet for bitter." This is a woe as sure and as deserved 
 as the woe denounced against drunkenness. 
 
 Habakkuk ii. 15, is another of the much abused texts. 
 Even the ignorant would not mistake rhe uioaning of the 
 text, were it not constantly garbled. " Woe unto him that 
 giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to hira," 
 here the quotera usually stop; even Doctors Samson and 
 Patton are not "shr '^ io stop here ! because the next 
 words would dcj ^ir quotation of point : *' and makest 
 
 him drunken ak that it is not the giving of drink, but 
 
 the making dru. . .x that is reprehended. Nay, nor even is 
 that, bad as it is, the object of the woe ; but something *vorse 
 still, and separated f.om the preceding only by a commay 
 "that thou mayest look on their nakedness;" i. e., the object 
 of the enforced drunkenness was to expose its unhappy, heli)- 
 less subject to utter scorn and derision. But the true 
 wording of the text cuts off entirely the Temperance mia- 
 
.:> 
 
 78 
 
 application of it. The prophet (lenoiinces the nicrcileas 
 oppreHsions of the Chaldeans. Tljoy made the weaker 
 nations around them mad with cruel injustice, and then 
 mocked their misery. Ho compares their conduct to that of 
 a brutal man who should force liis neighbour to get drunk, 
 forcing the liquor down bin tlnoat, as " cowboys " are 
 reported to do on Texas railroad trains, so as to make him an 
 object of derision to all beholders, fun for a brutal crowd. 
 However, he warns the Chaldean o[)pre8sor that his turn was 
 coming. "Drink thou, also, and let thy foreskin bo un- 
 covered : the cup of the Lord's right hand shall be turned 
 unto thee, and shameful spewing shall be on thy glory." 
 This imagery I have already commented on. " Drink 
 thou, also," might, with as much propriety, be made an 
 encouragement for drinking, as "woe unto him," be quoted 
 against offering drink to our neighbour in the way of hospi- 
 tality. When I say that the Hebrew word translated by 
 "giveth drink," really means "forcing him to drink," and 
 the Hebrew for " putting thy bottle to him," means " pour- 
 ing in thy bottle full," as Fuerst translates it in his Lexicon ; 
 or, as Maurer, qui infundis iram tuam atque adeo inebriaa, 
 " who pourest in thy anger, and so inebriatest ;" enough is 
 said to show that the idea of force is contained in the bare 
 words as well as in the argument, and force for a most vile 
 and barbarous purpose. And yet, "sipping his glass of sherry," 
 falls, according to the Temperance authorities, under this 
 woe !* * r , 
 
 *The Revised Version deprives the temperance orator of his best* 
 beloved and most picturesque verse, as the " bottle " goes : — " Woe 
 unto him that giveth his neighbour driuk, that addest (or pourest) 
 
7D 
 
 Tlicso will serve as specimens of the terrible i)iofnnity with 
 which sacred words are treated, showing how debauched tho 
 writein' consciences are, and how deadening such literature 
 must bo to tho moral instincts of those among whom it circu- 
 lates, e8jx3cially to their reverence for truth. 
 
 I shall end with briefly noticing two other instances, as 
 bad as any, of this utter moral porverseness. 
 
 In 1 Timothy hi. 3, among the qualifications of a bishop 
 is, "not given to wine." On this Dr. Patton has, p. Ill : 
 " Paroinos compounded Ttapa and o^voy, literally, not at, by, 
 near, or with wine. This looks considerably like total 
 abstinence " — with much more as uncharitable as this ia 
 childish. It is as if we ex[)lained St. Peter's words, " who 
 was I that I could withstand God ]'' by standing at, by, near, 
 or with God ! But it is of a piece with the rest of his 
 ignorance. The Revised Version has " no brawler," and in 
 the margin, "or, not quarrelsome over wine"; which was 
 expressed in the margin of the common Bible, and might 
 have saved Dr. Patton from his miserable blunder : ♦* Not 
 ready to quarrel, and offer wrong, as one in wine." For 
 this meaning there is the amplest authority. In Isaiah 
 XLI. 12, it is said to Israel of her oppressors: "Thou 
 shalt seek them and shalt not find them, even them that 
 contended with thee." In the Septuagint, or old Greek, 
 it is : " Thou shalt not at all find the men who shall treat 
 thee with insolence and injury," jmroinesousin. So did the 
 
 thy venom (or fury) thereto, and makest him drunken also, that 
 thou mayost look on their nakedness." 
 
80 
 
 oldest version, the Syriac, uiiclerstaiid it : *6bar 'al khamro 
 ** a transgressor over wine," as Etheridge literally translates 
 it." So Herodotus says Cambyses " treated with insolence 
 the laws of the Egyptians." So Hesychius, the old Greek 
 lexicographer. " Paroinia is the injuriousness, and every 
 fcort of sin that springs from wine." In Athenceus it is the 
 climax of " wine, dninkenness, madness, and even paroinia" 
 where it is the effect of all the rest. Clem. Alex. : *' Faroinia 
 is the indecency and disorder tJiat springs from the use of 
 wine." St. Chrysostora so understood the text : " Parohios 
 does not here signify a drunkard, but an injurious, a proud, 
 self-willed man." And so Alford, Ellicott, and Wordsworth, 
 all excellent commentators on the Greek Testament. Again, 
 in p. 8, '* Deacons must be not given to much wine," addict- 
 ing themselves to. Surely the " much " iid " given,* or 
 ad' iicting themselves to," most clearly imply that a reason- 
 able and modest use of wine is allowed, or words cease to 
 have any meaning ; and yet even such language must mean 
 ** total abstinonce" I Can the Bible be of any use to such 
 interpreters 1 . ■ , -r'^ 
 
 In Titus ii. 3, the "aged" Christian "women" of Crete 
 are charged not to be " given to much wine." But the Greek 
 is stronger here than in the places just discussed, and is pro- 
 perly represented by the Revised Version, " Not enslaved 
 to much wine." Such is Etheridge's translation of the 
 Syriac: "Enslaved to much wine." The verbis shaaved, 
 
 * The same verb prosechein is translated '* give heed to" in 1 Tim. 
 iv. 1, Tit. i. 14; and f'give attendance to," 1 Tim. iv. 13; Heb. 
 vii. 13. 
 
81 
 
 to bring in to slavery, for which see Heb. ii. 15 ; Jas. iv. 7 ; 
 Gal. ii 6. Here again are two large qualifications even for 
 " aged women," much and enslaved. Does it not show a mind 
 bci'cft of reason, bereft of reverence for sacred Scripture, and 
 I think 1 may say abandoned of God, to insist on this 
 language being consistent with the Divine injunction of total 
 abstinence, as Dr. P. insists] p. 121. 
 
 I have now ended my task. I have shewn, beyond any 
 fear of effective contradiction, what blind guides are the 
 Temperance writers, and what is much worse, what wilfully 
 blind guides they are. I have shewn how much they prefer 
 a theory to the most venerable authority ; to what violence 
 and indignity that authority is subjected to make it somehow 
 square with their own wilfulness; and from this every reader 
 of sense and candour, and esptcially every religious man, 
 will be constrained to infer that such a literature is demoral- 
 izing to the instincts of honesty and reverence, calculated to 
 debauch the communities among which it circulates, and to 
 give rise to a crop of new mischiefs not at all dreamt of by 
 the mass of men, and but even dimly imagined by the most 
 perspicacious and farsighted. I have abstained from all 
 topics but the one I proposed— the Temperance perversion 
 of Scripture. There is much else to be said against the pro- 
 hibition that is desired ; but 1 leave it to other hands or other 
 occasions. And certainly much may be said for it — enough, 
 if it be a sound principle, without laying violent hands on 
 things sacred ; and if I have done something to prevent the 
 continuance or rejietitiou of this profanity in the future, I 
 have done as I intended and have not written in vain.