The question of sin, in one shape or another, has, from the first, agitated men's minds. It could not be otherwise. For God erects a tribunal in the conscience of all—even of the Gentiles who had not His written testimony. (Rom. 2) Philosophy gave neither solution to the problems of the intellect, nor relief to the anxieties of the heart; for as it could not rise to the Infinite Source of all good, so it did not dare to descend to the depth of the sinner's need. Evading the difficulties as long as was possible, it ended at last with denying all truth as to either. “The world by wisdom knew not God;” and where He is unknown, so is sin in its source, its nature, and its doom.
On the other hand, the family of faith have ever had a certain knowledge of God, and therefore of themselves. This gradually increased from the word of judgment on the Serpent, till the Seed came to whom the promise was made. Thus the knowledge, though true and received with a divine conviction, was necessarily partial, as indeed the revelation was, till, in these last days, God spake by His Son, the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person. In Him, especially in His death, the real character of everything was made manifest. There the badness of man, set on by Satan's craft, was met and overcome by the goodness of God. The darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. There is no veil, as there once was in Judaism. With the cross it could not co-exist, but was rent from top to bottom. And if the holy light of God displays what the sinner is in his wants and wretchedness, it cannot but display the ample provision which God has made in the blood of His own Lamb. Thus is the poor believer taught what sin is by what it has cost the Son of God; and he adores as he sees that where sin has abounded, grace did much more abound.
Hence the distance between the wisest unbeliever and the least instructed believer in their thoughts about sin. To the one, Jesus is nothing; he may admire, and ask what is truth, but, like Pilate, he goes out without waiting for an answer. To the other, Jesus is all, Jesus is truth, and he knows it to his peace and blessing. The former is satisfied with stepping into the troubled waters of Bethesda—with a reformation of man as he is. The latter sees in sin, not sickness only, but moral death, and therefore can rest nothing short of the quickening power of the Son of God. He knows that for faith is reserved the resurrection of life, the complement of the spiritual resurrection which is already enjoyed. Alas! he knows too that those who hear not the Savior's voice have not life, and cannot escape the judgment which shall be executed by and by. “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true: and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.” (1 John 5:19, 2019And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. 20And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. (1 John 5:19‑20).)
Now, the Teetotal system, however modified, will be found to offend against these fundamental truths. Having a low estimate of sin, it presents as low a remedy. Even as to the single evil with which it seeks to deal, it barely skims the surface. It does not, it cannot touch the heart within, and so it wreaks its vengeance upon the liquors without. Pharisaism washed the hands, Teetotalism washes the lips. But the same word of the Lord detects the inadequacy of both. “Hearken unto me every one of you, and understand: there is nothing from without a man that, entering into him, can defile him; but the things that come out of him, those are they that defile the man. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.” (Mark 7:14-1614And when he had called all the people unto him, he said unto them, Hearken unto me every one of you, and understand: 15There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man. 16If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. (Mark 7:14‑16).)
The entire spring of moral action, the heart, is corrupt before God. What man is, taints what he does. Hence, while the human method to cut off this and that, the divine is, first of all, to make the tree good. If that be done, good fruit is sure to follow: if not done, the more men work about it they only get more bad fruit.
It is a new life which the sinner requires as the starting point; not a step Godward can be taken previously. But it is precisely this which the Gospel proclaims at once, without money and without price. The gift, the free gift, of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And God will own no way, no truth, no life, no Savior, but His Son. Therefore to occupy men with a teetotal pledge, is in fact to divert them at best with a quack medicine, and this, not for the root of the disease, but for a particular symptom—to divert them, I say, from the Gospel, which is as efficacious a cure in the drunkard's case as in all others. For it is the power of God unto every one that believeth.
Since the days of Cain, man has never wanted some new or revived invention wherewith to patch up his outcast condition. If Teetotalism, then, had come forward merely as a medical discovery, or even as a branch of philanthropy, it might have passed unnoticed save by those whom it concerns. But seeing that, in its grossest form, it taunts the servants of Christ with their vain efforts, and professes to outdo the Gospel: seeing that, in its least offensive shape, it claims Scriptural authority, and aspires to be the pioneer and the handmaid of the Gospel, the subject calls for a passing notice.
The Christian reads the Old Testament. He finds that wine intoxicated Noah and Lot, (Gen. 9; 19) and that it afterward afforded occasion for frequent and solemn remonstrance. (Pro. 20, 23 Isa. 5; 28, &c.) Again he finds wine brought as a natural comfort to Abraham and Isaac, (Gen. 14; 27) and often so treated, literally as well as figuratively. (Deut. 14; Psa. 104; Pro. 9, 31:6 Cant. passim, &c.) He sees in the New Testament neither contradiction nor difficulty. The Lord commenced His miracles by making water into wine (John 2), was invidiously compared with His forerunner because He abstained not (Luke 7), and made bread and wine (which John the Baptist never used) to be the chosen, constant memorial of His dying love till He come again, the symbol also of our communion with each other. Finally, the Holy Ghost more than once dwells on the end of the drunkard (1 Cor. 6; Gal. 5), corrects the unhallowed license of the Corinthian church at the Lord's Supper (1 Cor. 11), and warns believers, especially such as were prominent, against excess in daily life. (Rom. 13; Eph. 5; 1 Tim. 3; Titus 2 Peter 4) At the same time, He takes pains (1 Tim. 5:2323Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities. (1 Timothy 5:23)) to remove the scrupulousness of a devoted young servant of Christ, and enjoins the use of a little wine, rather than water, for his stomach's sake and often infirmities. So graciously does God deign to interest Himself even in the bodily weakness and wants of those who love him! The conclusion is irresistible. Total abstinence, as a general rule, has not, nor ever had, divine sanction. It is a device at issue with the plain facts and doctrine of Scripture; and this as to Christians no less than as to Jews. In the Old Testament yayin, and the New Testament οῖος that is, the ordinary words for “wine” in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures—are used both in a good and in a bad connection; because the moral evil lay not in the thing itself, nor in its use, but in its abuse. There were different kinds of wine then (Neh. 5:1818Now that which was prepared for me daily was one ox and six choice sheep; also fowls were prepared for me, and once in ten days store of all sorts of wine: yet for all this required not I the bread of the governor, because the bondage was heavy upon this people. (Nehemiah 5:18)), as there are now. But not a single text intimates a particular sort of yayin, which could not inebriate. Nay, more; what Scripture does say disprove the fancy, as the sequel abundantly shows. Thus, Num. 6:33He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of strong drink, neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eat moist grapes, or dried. (Numbers 6:3) plainly marks off yayin, as. fermented grape-juice, and that in the vinous as distinguished from the acetous stage; excluding other fermented drinks, vinegar; unfermented grape-liquors, as well as the solid fruit of the vine. We who adhere to the regular sense of the word are not bound to produce specific proofs; we are entitled to take it in the same sense everywhere, unless positive cause be shown to the contrary. But those who affirm that in certain places the word has a different Meaning are, in each instance, bound to give Scriptural reasons adequate to produce conviction. This they never can do. We deny their affirmation: upon them falls the burden of proof.
Not to anticipate, however, the Temperance Reformers may be divided in twain. One party consider that alcoholic liquors are essentially poisonous, and therefore evil as a beverage; that in Scripture times there were two distinct genera of wine, &c.—the one unfermented and a blessing, the other fermented and a curse. But the moderate own that the use of alcohol is not in itself sinful; that inspired men, and even Christ himself, did not abstain; that the habitual use of fermented beverages may be sanctioned by the Bible: still they plead that, though lawful, it is not expedient. It is plain that the latter system destroys the former. Among themselves the difference is keenly felt, if we may judge by the unusual acrimony of their recriminations. The partisans of expediency pronounce the doctrine of the ultra-teetotalers to be “preposterous and pestiferous lucubrations,” “mischievous error,” and “modern delusion,” and hear in return that, in its present shape, their theory is “an absurd and blasphemous abomination, and the sooner it is universally scouted and scorned, the better” — “a fraud and a counterfeit of the worst description.” Since this is their spirit to each other, he who is forced to condemn them both can expect little courtesy from either.
Let us, however, examine their arguments; and, first, of those who advocate “thorough and consistent teetotalism.”
The words for wine, say they, “must have been, at first, necessarily applied and restricted to, fresh unfermented juices. The primitive process of wine-pressing is well expressed in Gen. 40:1111And Pharaoh's cup was in my hand: and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand. (Genesis 40:11); and also by Milton,” &c. Now, every Scripturian must know that this statement is not only without Bible evidence, but contradicted by it. Noah “drank of the wine and was drunken.” This is the first recorded application of the word “wine.” Is it restricted to fresh unfermented juice? Or does it not necessarily mean the fermented liquor of the grape? This case was long before the dream of Pharoah's butler, even if the process described there had been called wine-pressing in the chapter, which it is not. Nor are the reveries of “Paradise Lost” as to Eve of weight on such a question.
We are referred to Lev. 10, “where Teetotalism is proclaimed as the Eternal's remedy for intemperance.” But, in the first places the restriction applies to Aaron and his sons. Secondly, it was in force only when they went into the tabernacle. Is this to proclaim Teetotalism? Does it not rather imply the ordinary liberty of the priests to use what on a special occasion was forbid den? Another writer reminds us that under the New Testament all believers are priests. Does he forget that if Aaron's sons are to be spiritually interpreted, so is the type of wine and strong drink? Thus natural joy and excitement seem to be shadowed under these drinks, as the uncovering of the head and rending of the garments were the symptoms of natural sorrow. Neither becomes those who enjoy nearness to God. His presence was meant to silence both. Whether, therefore, we look at the type or the antitype, Lev. 10 does not proclaim Teetotalism.
Next, we are told of “the establishment of the first Teetotal Society among the Holy Nazarites.” Now, not only is their case a peculiar one like the priests, but there are points essential to the Nazarite which differ alike from the theory and the practice of the Teetotal Society. His separation consisted in three grand heads; he was to eat or drink nothing that came from the vine, to let his hair grow, and to come at no dead body. None of these things is put forth as a moral principle more than another. The whole was a carnal ordinance imposed until the time of reformation. To drink wine was defiling to the Nazarite, but it was equally so to cut the hair. Christianity is subject to no part of the ordinance as such, though we may well profit by the truths which it figures. Moreover, when the days of his separation were fulfilled, God ordained that the Nazarite should shave his head and might drink wine. (Num. 6:13-2013And this is the law of the Nazarite, when the days of his separation are fulfilled: he shall be brought unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: 14And he shall offer his offering unto the Lord, one he lamb of the first year without blemish for a burnt offering, and one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish for a sin offering, and one ram without blemish for peace offerings, 15And a basket of unleavened bread, cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, and wafers of unleavened bread anointed with oil, and their meat offering, and their drink offerings. 16And the priest shall bring them before the Lord, and shall offer his sin offering, and his burnt offering: 17And he shall offer the ram for a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the Lord, with the basket of unleavened bread: the priest shall offer also his meat offering, and his drink offering. 18And the Nazarite shall shave the head of his separation at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall take the hair of the head of his separation, and put it in the fire which is under the sacrifice of the peace offerings. 19And the priest shall take the sodden shoulder of the ram, and one unleavened cake out of the basket, and one unleavened wafer, and shall put them upon the hands of the Nazarite, after the hair of his separation is shaven: 20And the priest shall wave them for a wave offering before the Lord: this is holy for the priest, with the wave breast and heave shoulder: and after that the Nazarite may drink wine. (Numbers 6:13‑20).) Does God ordain what is wrong? The Nazarite was then free to drink the very wine which before had been forbidden. Does this permission really square with Teetotalism? Lastly, what has the principle of a separation from all vine-, produce, in common with the Teetotal pledge? The Nazarite was forbidden the unfermented as well as the fermented, the solid no less than the liquid. Does this accord with the reasoning of “Tirosh lo yayin,” or of any other accredited work of Teetotalers? If not one entire verse of Num. 6 can be honestly interpreted in favor of their society, why cite the Nazarite ritual as their precursor? And how do they seek to escape from the net in which they have Entangled their own feet? They are forced to allow that from everything pertaining to the vine the Nazarites equally abstained; but, with self-complacent skepticism, they add, that we, with our better chemical knowledge, of course do not! Can Christians tamely listen to such contempt of God's word! The folly, too, of these speeches is only less gross than the sin; for what had a Nazarite to do with chemistry? It is enough to remark on the message of the angel of the Lord to the mothers of Samson and of John the Baptist, that theirs was an extraordinary Nazariteship.” Again, the Rechabites obeyed in neither building nor sowing, quite as much as in drinking no wine. Their case, if applicable at all, would prove far too much. If it proved that men ought to drink no wine, it would prove that they ought to build no houses. (Jer. 35) So Daniel and his friends abstained from the king's meat as well as his nine. If they drank water, they ate pulse. It was a question of Jewish cleanness, not of morality. Accordingly, Dan. 10:33I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled. (Daniel 10:3) clearly implies that, save in special circumstances, as fasting, the prophet did eat flesh and drink wine. The cup offered to the Lord upon the cross, and refused, did not consist of wine merely, and therefore does not bear on the present question. The case of Timothy, as we have seen, proves the reverse of what it is cited to prove.
The reader has before him the Scriptural argument of the extreme party. Let him judge whether the case of the moderate section is not as decided a failure. They appeal to Rom. 14:2121It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak. (Romans 14:21) and 1 Cor. 8:1313Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend. (1 Corinthians 8:13). The question is: does the scope of these texts coincide with that of a Teetotal Society? Is a drunkard the “weak brother” for whose sake the Christian is to forbear using his liberty?
The simple reading of 1 Cor. 8 shows that nothing is farther from the mind of the Spirit. The question here is one “touching things offered unto idols.” The Teetotal question has nothing to do with such offerings. That is, the essential features of the Corinthian difficulty do not exist in the cause of Temperance. Rom. 14 (though it mentions wine, which 1 Cor. 8. does not) is as little to the purpose. At Rome the dispute grew not out of Gentile idolatry, but out of the religious scruples of the Jewish, converts, who, on certain days, would not partake of meats and drinks. Thus have we seen Daniel abstain from his customary food for three whole weeks, and every Jew similarly testified the affliction of his soul on the Day of Atonement. But it is preposterous to apply such a principle to a Temperance Society. Some Gentiles in these days may refrain from fermented liquors; others may adopt a vegetable diet. Is the Christian to be tossed to and fro at the whim of a world which perverts everything? Is he to refuse anything which God has created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth? Lastly, the way in which “the weak brother” is treated is as revolting as untrue. 1 Cor. 5 proves beyond cavil that a drunkard is a wicked person to be put away from the Church, not a weak brother to be home with. But Rom. 14 describes a class as different as possible—not false professors of lax, unholy walk, but real Christians who had feebly realized their deliverance from all questions about things legally clean or unclean. Therefore they retained a conscience in bondage to days, meats, and drinks. Where is the analogy between the Roman and Corinthian cases, and a Teetotal Society? There is none. But if so, it is clear that their argument from Rom. 14 and 1 Cor. 8 totally perishes.