THE BIBLE ON TEMPERANCE.
Passages Commending or Enjoining the Use of Wine or Strong Drink, or Both, or including a Plentiful supply of Wine among the Blessings to be Bestowed upon Favored individuals or tribes, etc.; or including the Deprivation of it among the Punishments inflicted upon the Disobedient.
“Jacob, blessing Judah, said: ([Gen. 49 : 11, 12]): ‘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, and his teeth white with milk.’
“Doesn’t look as though Yahweh, the ‘God of Jacob,’ thought wine a very bad article.
“[Num. 6 : 20]: ‘After that the Nazarite may drink wine.’
“In [Deut. 7 : 13], God, through Moses, said to his chosen people: ‘And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee; and he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil,’ etc., etc.
“Just think of it, Woman’s Christian Temperance Union people, God has solemnly promised to bless his faithful children with an especially large vintage, a better vintage than that of their unbelieving neighbors! Rather rough on the heretic French and the Infidel Germans!
“[Deut. 11 : 14]: ‘That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thy oil.’
“Yahweh is determined that the supply of wine shall not fall short.
“[Deut. 14 : 26]: ‘And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth; and thou shalt eat there before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou and thine household.’
“Rev. Mr. Stevenson to the box! Repeat your testimony, please. ‘I said that, The education of the children of the republic in temperance principles logically involves the maintenance in those schools of the Bible as the great text book in morals.’
“[Deut. 15 : 14]: ‘Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy wine-press of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him.’
“This is said regarding the manumitted Hebrew slave. And so it is a blessing for God to give the fruit of the wine-press to his children? And we are to emulate him?
“It seems that God punishes his people by blasting their vineyards, and thus cutting short their supply of wine, as below:
“[Deut. 28 : 39]: ‘Thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress them, but thou shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes, for the worms shall eat them.’
“Verse 51 of the same chapter tells the people that their cattle and wine and oil shall be taken from them if they disobey God’s commands. This is the famous ‘cursing chapter’ of the Bible, and is just the reading calculated to make a man believe that God was the first pope of Rome.
“Deuteronomy is a very good book for the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, and I suggest that it hold a special meeting to pray for the evidently ‘rum’-loving god who wrote it. There is much other matter in it that helps to make it an admirable work for use in the schools.
“[Judges 9 : 13]: ‘And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?’
“Ah! so it appears that God, the ‘original prohibitionist,’ according to the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union drinks wine, else how could it cheer him?
“Second Sam. 6 : 19: ‘And he dealt among all the people, even among the whole multitude of Israel, as well to the women as men, to every one a cake of bread, and a good piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine.’
“Query: What would the Christian temperance ladies have done with that wine had they been present when David, the man after God’s own heart, dealt it out to all, men as well as women?
“Second Sam. 16 : 2: ‘And Ziba said, The asses be for the king’s household to ride on; and the bread and summer fruit for the young men to eat; and the wine that such as faint in the wilderness may drink.’
“In Kansas and Iowa many get ‘faint in the wilderness,’ judging by the business of the drugstores. No doubt they have all seen this prescription given by God.
“Second Chron. 2 : 10: ‘And behold, I will give to thy servants, the hewers that cut timber, twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat, and twenty thousand measures of barley, and twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil.’
“The article which Solomon, ‘the wisest of all men,’ gave to the servants of the king of Tyre in one-fourth payment for their labor in preparing the temple which he built to the Lord, was probably especially blessed by the Lord for that use, and so rendered non-intoxicating, else we must conclude that he pays those who build houses for him in what friend St. John would call ‘liquid damnation.’
“And inasmuch as Solomon was the wisest of all men (or God made a mistake when he so said), and the temple was for the said God, I am justified in concluding that this God regards wine as a legal tender, and so I put the above passage in this category as one in which God has sanctified the use of wine.
“[Neh. 5 : 11]: (To the usurers): ‘Restore, I pray you, to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive yards, and their houses, also the hundredth part of the money, and of the corn, the wine, and the oil, that ye exact of them.’
“[Neh. 10 : 39]: ‘For the children of Israel and the children of Levi shall bring the offering of the corn, of the new wine, and the oil ... and we will not forsake the house of our God.’
“Wine, old or ‘new,’ seems to have been always acceptable to ‘our God,’ whether tendered as a holy offering or otherwise.
“‘The Lord’ makes wine, according to the Psalmist:
“[Psalm 104 : 15]: ‘And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart.’
“If ‘the Lord’ lived in Iowa, Lozier and Foster would have him arrested for violation of the new iron-clad prohibitory law.
“[Prov. 3 : 10]: ‘So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.’
“[Prov. 31 : 6, 7]: ‘Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy heart. Let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more.’
“In these two verses, the author of Proverbs has more than nullified all the good things he said in his earlier chapters, and which I have quoted in List A. I am quite sure that where they have prevented the drinking of one glass of wine or strong drink, these passages have led to the drinking of one thousand. And this is a mild statement of the case.
“[Eccl. 9 : 7]: ‘Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.’
“[Song of Sol. 1 : 2]: ‘Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth; for thy love is better than wine.’
“From this we gather that, next to love wine is the best thing in the world. This is the opinion of most bacchanalian experts, I believe. Solomon seems to have had much experience.
“[Song of Sol. 5 : 1]: ‘I have drunk my wine with my milk; eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O believers.’
“Is this the earliest mention of milk punch?
“[Song of Sol. 8 : 2]: ‘I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate.’ Metaphorical, undoubtedly.
“[Isa. 1 : 22]: ‘Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water.’
“Have your wine full strength, as much as you would have your silver unalloyed, is the admonition of God’s prophet.
“[Isa. 24 : 7]: ‘The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth; all the merry-hearted do sigh.’
“One more in the long list of passages wherein it is said that God punished his chosen people by cutting off their vintage. What God regards as a real deprivation to lose must be good to have and to keep, in his opinion, whatever the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union people may think about it. Verse 9 says: ‘They shall not drink wine with a song; strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it.’ Verse 11: ‘There is a crying for wine in the streets; all joy is darkened; the mirth of the land is gone.’
“God thus punished them by taking away their wine, on the same principle that he punishes us by killing our children, as Christians say that he does. Will they contend that children are inherently an evil? They must if they follow the same line of reasoning that they do in interpreting these texts.
“[Isa. 27 : 2, 3]: ‘In that day sing ye unto her, a vineyard of red wine. I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment; lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.’
“Figurative, doubtless! So is the next, but all the influence of these passages is on the side of intemperance, necessarily, for the simple reason that the great mass of the people will take them literally, and for the further reason that the constant association of wine with ‘good news’ and symbols of religion familiarize the mind with it and serve to give it something of a sacred character. This last mentioned fact helps to explain why the church so long opposed the modern temperance movement. But here is the passage above indicated, [Isa. 55 : 1]: ‘Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat: yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price.’
“[Isa. 62 : 8]: ‘The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine, for the which thou hast labored.’
“Rev. Stevenson should suggest to the Lord that, whereas wine is an evil thing, and the Bible a ‘great text book of morals,’ and the palladium of temperance, essential in the proper training of our children, therefore, he, the Lord, should have clearly shown that he meant that the enemies of his chosen people should take from them their wine that through such deprivation they should be better and happier. But, no! he ranks wine with corn, and registers a mighty oath that the people shall have them both.
“[Isa. 65 : 8]: ‘Thus saith the Lord, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it, so I will do for my servants’ sake, that I may not destroy them all.’
“[Jer. 31 : 12]: ‘Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil,’ etc.
“[Jer. 40 : 10]: ‘But ye, gather ye wine, and summer fruits, and oil, and put them in your vessels, and dwell in the cities that ye have taken.’
“Probably ‘wine’ here means grapes, though it is used in the same construction as ‘oil.’
“[Jer. 48 : 33]: ‘And joy and gladness is taken from the plentiful field, and from the land of Moab, and I have caused wine to fail from the wine presses.’
“[Dan. 1 : 5]: ‘And the king appointed them a daily provision of the king’s meat, and of the wine which he drank, so nourishing them three years, that at the end thereof they might stand before the king.’
“Here God intends, plainly, to convey the impression that wine is nourishing! The only way in which the Christian temperance people can relieve him from the imputation of teaching lessons so opposite to theirs is to enter the plea that he did not inspire the writer!
“Hos. 2 : 8, 9: ‘For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold which they prepared for Baal. Therefore I will return and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.’
“Of course, if these passages and very many of like import, are any argument against wine, they are of equal weight in the scale against corn, wool, and many other useful and necessary articles. The authors of such verses, wherever found, unquestionably looked upon wine as one of God’s good gifts to his children, but which he was compelled to sometimes deprive them of because of their disobedience.
“Hos. 9 : 2: ‘The floor and the wine-press shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her.’
“That is, Israel shall be punished for her transgressions by the destruction of the fertility of the soil.
“Evidently the perfume of wine was pleasing unto the Lord, for he says, in promising his blessing to the repentant people (Hos. 14 : 7): ‘They shall revive as the corn, and grow as the wine; the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon.’
“[Joel 1 : 5]: ‘Awake, ye drunkards, and howl, all ye drinkers of wine.’
“This, taken by itself, would be an unqualified condemnation of intoxicants, but such was not the prophet’s meaning. The verse concludes: ‘Because of the new wine, for it is cut off from your mouths.’
“In the vision of the prophet he sees the great evils that have come upon his country; the palmer-worm, and the locust, and the canker-worm have destroyed the crops. ‘The meat-offering and the drink-offering is cut off from the house of the Lord, ... the corn is wasted, the oil languisheth,’ etc. While in the verse quoted the drinkers are mildly requested to howl, in verse thirteen we have, ‘Gird yourselves and lament, ye priests; howl ye ministers of the altar.’ No temperance admonition or lesson here, that is plain.
“[Joel 3 : 18]: ‘And it shall come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with water,’ etc.
“Thus, again, among the great blessings to be bestowed upon the faithful is wine in abundance. One of the facts that strikes me most forcibly, in making such an examination as this, is the almost universal favor with which the Hebrew prophets looked upon wine and wine-drinking; and in prophesying the evils to come upon their people because of their disobedience to God or their oppression of their fellows, they rarely fail to include the cutting off of the wine supply. This they evidently regarded as one of the greatest of calamities. Our Christian temperance friends would gladly, so they say, visit wholesale destruction upon the vineyards and barley fields, and they seem almost to seek to convey the impression that God made a mistake when he created grapes and barley. This proves how honest they are when they say that the Bible is a temperance book. In [Amos 5 : 11], we have another example of the above-mentioned fact in the utterances of the prophet. Denouncing the people for their injustice, he says: ‘Ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.’ In the preceding sentence he had said: ‘Ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them.’ Houses were good, wine was good; but because of their sins they should be deprived of both. There is here no argument either direct or implied in behalf of abstinence.
“[Amos 9 : 14]: ‘And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens and eat the fruit of them.’
“It does not seem that even Mr. Stevenson would venture to claim this verse as a Bible argument for temperance. They shall drink the wine!
“Micah. 6 : 15: ‘Thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil; and sweet wine, but shalt not drink wine.’
“How can apparently honorable men claim that God, as revealed in the Bible, disapproves of the use of intoxicants when he is continually telling his chosen people that he will punish them by destroying their corn, and their wine, and their oil; evidently taking particular pains to impress upon them the fact that they (wine, corn, and oil) are equally good and useful?
“[Zeph. 1 : 13]: ‘They shall also build houses, but not inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, but not drink the wine thereof.’
“The same old story:
“In chapter 1, verse 11, Haggai calls for a drouth upon the land to punish the people, and he includes, as usual, the corn, and the oil, and the new wine among the things to be destroyed.
“[Zech. 9 : 17]: ‘For how great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty; corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids.’
“Rather a singular apportionment of his bounty, unless ‘corn’ means something stronger than wine.
“[Matt. 11 : 19]: ‘The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold, a man is gluttonous, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.’ But are these her children who claim Jesus as very God and yet fly directly in the face of his precepts and practice? Or is it moral uprightness instead of wisdom that they lack?
“In [Mat. 21 : 33] to 41, and [Mark 12 : 1] to 9, Jesus gives us the parable of the vineyard and the husbandman, and in it all there is no hint that there was anything wrong in the business of winemaking.
“The thought that we find expressed in [Mat. 11 : 19], is given again in [Luke 7 : 33–4–5], where we read: ‘For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of man is come eating and drinking, and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! But wisdom is justified of all her children.’
“Whoever uttered these words, man or god; whoever wrote them, John or some one else one hundred or more years later, there can be no disputing regarding the lesson which is taught. It is that each individual is to determine for himself or herself in all things pertaining to personal conduct and habits. ‘Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind’ is the central idea of the various renderings. There is no rebuke, expressed or implied, of intemperance; there is nothing that can be tortured into a condemnation of wine-drinking or into an approval of the principle of total abstinence, or that of prohibition. Here was his opportunity to condemn the drinking of wine, to speak for that which is now called temperance; but from his lips fell no words of warning; to those gathered about him he said nothing in favor of the great reform which Christians of to-day, falsely assuming to speak in his name, declare finds its sanction and inspiration, its bulwark and tower of defense, in the Bible.
“It seems that the good Samaritan ([Luke 10 : 34]) had with him a supply of wine with which he dressed the wounds of the stranger.
“[John 2 : 3–11]: ‘And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. And there were set there six water pots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, Fill the water-pots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was (but the servants which drew the water knew), the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse; but thou hast kept the good wine until now. This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.’
“[John 4 : 46]: ‘So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine.’
“The first miracle which Jesus performed was to convert six pots of water into wine! And this feat convinced his disciples of his supernatural origin and powers! And he did this to manifest forth his glory! Either this is true or the Bible is false. Whether true or not, it has been a most powerful argument against abstinence; it has resulted directly in making drunkards, as it has indirectly in making hypocrites and Jesuitical sophists. I of course mean by this last sentence that the seeming necessity to prove the Bible a temperance work has made any number of Christian apologists resort to all kinds of specious arguments and make any number of false claims in order to make good their assertions. The assumption that this wine was not of an intoxicating nature is purely gratuitous. There is not even the ghost of a fact to be found in support of it. Hundreds of passages, which I have quoted under their appropriate heads, prove beyond a doubt that the wine so often mentioned in the Bible was intoxicating; the words of the governor prove that this miraculously produced portion of it certainly was of the very best, for it is against all reason to suppose that men accustomed to the taste and effects of wine would pronounce simple grape-juice to be better than all that had already been served to them at the feast; and, finally, the declaration that this act of Jesus was a miracle and that it made his disciples to ‘believe on him,’ gives the last stroke to the already nearly dead ‘non-intoxicating’ theory.
“[Col. 2 : 16]: ‘Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days.’
“In other words, judge for yourselves in all these matters, submit to no dictation from without. How does that strike you, Messrs. Bible Prohibitionists?
“[1 Tim. 5 : 23]: ‘Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.’
“It is probable that this short verse has led to the consumption of more wine and caused more intemperance than any other equal number of words in any language or contained in any book. It has had more potent effect upon the mind of the Christian believer than have twenty passages which have in a hesitating, half-hearted, uncertain way caution against the use of much wine.
“Comparing this class of passages with those grouped under ‘A,’ we find that the Bible pleas for temperance are out voted more than five to one by those in favor of the use of intoxicants. The record is an astonishingly bad one for the Bible as a total abstinence and Prohibition work, and should put to the blush all of its worshipers and apologists who have been so foolish or unscrupulous as to claim that it is indispensable to the temperance cause and in the education of our children. Both claims are absurd.” (E. C. Walker’s “Bible Temperance.”)