Intemperance.
I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it fosters the evil of intemperance.
While the sacred books of Buddhists and Mohammedans, by forbidding the use of intoxicating drinks, have contributed to make drunkenness among these people disreputable and rare, the Bible, by encouraging their use, has made intemperance in Christian countries frightfully prevalent and almost respectable.
“Thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink” (Deut. xiv, 26).
“Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more” (Prov. xxxi, 6,7).
“Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake” (1 Tim. v, 23).
“Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart, for God now accepteth thy works” (Eccles. ix, 7).
“Corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids” (Zech. ix, 17).
“They shall plant vineyards and drink the wine thereof” (Amos ix, 14).
“Wine that maketh glad the heart of man” (Ps. civ, 15).
“Wine which cheereth God and man” (Jud. ix, 13).
“In the holy place shalt thou cause the strong wine to be poured unto the Lord for a drink offering” (Num. xxviii, 7).
Will that wing of the Prohibition army which accepts the Bible as its guide inscribe these texts upon its banner?
As a reward for the Jews keeping the judgments of the Lord he was to bless their wine (Deut. vii, 13).
Liberal giving to the Lord was to be rewarded with an abundance of wine.
“Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase: so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine” (Prov. iii, 9, 10).
One of the most direful calamities was a wine famine.
“Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.... The drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord; the priests, the Lord’s ministers, mourn.... Gird yourselves and lament, ye priests howl, ye ministers of the altar; come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God; for ... the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God” (Joel i, 5, 9, 13).
God’s especial favorites had a weakness for wine. When he drowned the world’s inhabitants he saved Noah, knowing that as soon as the waters subsided he would plant a vineyard, make wine, and become intoxicated. When Sodom was destroyed the only righteous man he found was that foul drunkard, Lot. When David made his celebrated feast in honor of the Lord he gave to every man and woman a flagon of wine. He kept some for himself and so merry did his heart become that he “danced before the Lord with all his might.”
Thus joyously sings Solomon: “I have drunk my wine with my milk [milk punch]; eat, O friends! drink, yea, drink abundantly.” In the morning he sings another song: “Open to me ... my love ... for my head is filled with dew.” How many a wayward fellow like Solomon has risen from the gutter, sorrowfully wended his way home, and serenaded his sleeping spouse with that same melody!
When Solomon erected his temple to God he gave to his laborers “twenty thousand baths [nearly 175,000 gallons] of wine” (2 Chron. ii, 10).
The Nazarite, it is claimed, was commanded to abstain from wine. Yes, but only during the period of his separation. “After that the Nazarite may drink wine” (Num. vi, 20).
God commanded Jeremiah to tempt with wine those who abstained from its use:
“Go unto the house of the Rechabites and speak with them, and bring them into the house of the Lord, into one of the chambers, and give them wine to drink” (Jer. xxxv, 2).
Christ spoke as follows:
“John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine.... The Son of Man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man and a winebibber” (Luke, vii, 33, 34).
This censure was evidently not unmerited. The first act in Christ’s ministerial career was to manufacture three barrels of wine for a wedding feast; his last recorded act was a benediction upon the wine cup.
Theology being no longer in demand, the Protestant clergy, contrary to the teachings of the Bible, and the traditions of the church, now find it popular and profitable to espouse the cause of temperance. But in championing one rational virtue they employ two Christian vices, hypocrisy and intolerance. The most inconsistent, the most uncharitable opponents of the liquor traffic to-day are these fresh converts who profess to be doing their master’s will and who claim that his Word is the advocate of total abstinence and prohibitory laws. With fierce invective they declaim against the old God Bacchus, yet every anathema they hurl at him will apply with equal justice to their God and Christ.
One of the most unscrupulous arguments ever adduced in support of any cause is that now advanced by some Christian temperance advocates to the effect that the wine sanctioned in the Bible was not intoxicating. With the same ease that they declare that in the Bible “black” means “white,” that “hate” means “love,” and “day” means “age,” they declare that Bible wine does not mean wine, but unfermented grape juice.
The Rev. Dr. W. M. Thompson, Rev. William Wright, Rev. S. H. Calhoun, Rev. C. V. A. Van Dyke, and other able Hebrew and Sanscrit scholars of Western Asia, who have made the history and customs of its people both ancient and modern a life study, affirm that such a thing as non-intoxicating wine was unknown, that the unfermented juice of the grape was never recognized as wine. Dr. Philip Schaff, the foremost Bible scholar of this country, affirms the same:
“The wine of the Bible was no doubt pure and unadulterated.... It was genuine and real wine, and, like all wine in use in grape-growing countries, exhilarating. To lay down the principle that the use of intoxicating drink as a beverage is a sin—per se—is to condemn the greater part of Christendom, to contradict the Bible, and to impeach Christ himself, who drank wine and made wine by miracle to supply the marriage guests.”
At the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church held at Belfast, Ireland, in 1870, an exhaustive examination and discussion was given this subject. The result was the adoption by an almost unanimous vote of the following resolution offered by the Rev. Robert Wales, Professor of Dialectic Theology, Belfast:
“As the wine used in the oblations of the Old Testament time at the Passover and by our Lord Jesus Christ himself in the institution of the supper was the ordinary wine of the country, that is, the fermented juice of the grape, we cannot sanction the use of the unfermented juice of the grape as a symbol in the ordinance.”
That the sacramental wine used by the early Christians was intoxicating, and that they were addicted to using it to excess at the Lord’s Supper, is admitted by Paul (1 Cor. xi, 20–34).
Referring to this subject, the Christian Register says: “We deplore intemperance, and welcome every truthful argument against it, but the argument founded on the non-intoxicating character of Bible wine is a weak and diluted fallacy.”