"'It is not for kings to drink wine, nor princes strong drink, lest they
drink and forget the law and pervert the judgment of the afflicted.' Here
is abstinence enjoined, and the reason for it plainly given. Again (Lev. x,
8-11), _it is required of the priests_: 'And the Lord spake unto Aaron,
saying, Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee,
when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die: it shall
be a statute for ever throughout your generations: That ye may put a
difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean; and that
ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord hath
spoken unto them by the hand of Moses.'"
"Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived
thereby is not wise."--Prov. xx, i.
No one questions that the wine referred to above as unholy and a mocker and
unclean, is fermented wine, and no one supposes for a moment that it is
unfermented wine. "But they also have erred through wine, and through
strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred
through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the
way through strong drink, they err in vision, they stumble in judgment. For
all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place
clean." (Isa. xxviii, 7,8.)
How correctly and literally do the above words represent the effects of
drinking fermented wine and strong drinks, seen today as of old. O
gentlemen of the clergy! beware! beware! "Woe to him that giveth his
neighbor drink; that putteth thy bottle to him." (Hab. ii, 5,15.) You have
young and inexperienced men and women and even boys under your charge. May
the Lord protect them!
CANON WILBERFORCE ON SACRAMENTAL WINES.
Canon Wilberforce is reported by the London _Temperance Record_ as
saying at a recent meeting in England: "He believed if people desired to go
back literally and absolutely to the days of the institution of the
Sacrament, it would be a most difficult thing, if not impossible, to prove
that the particular cup which their Master took in His hand in that solemn
crisis of His life when He instituted the Holy Eucharist was fermented at
all. There was abundant testimony to prove it was not. Some went back to
primitive authorities. He should like to read one or two which might have
weight with them. Take for example the testimony of St. Cyprian, who wrote
in A. D. 230:--
"'When the Lord gives the name of His body to bread, composed of the union
of many particles, He indicates that our people, whose sins He bore, are
united. And when He calls wine squeezed out from bunches of grapes His
blood, He intimates that our flocks are similarly joined by the varied
admixture of a united multitude."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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