Litchfield enquirer., 1870-01-20
] rhe ssoriptural Argument, {,

Any great moral or poiltlcal reform IS prettyanresst some stage of it's progress to9ene6unteri what is called the '' scriptural afgdment. ,, Social habits sanctioned by Christ or the Apostles, political dqt1es en < joined in the New Testament, are claimed to be no longer open to qualification, or subject to reform. Throughout the great struggles between King and Commons that mark the history of England in the seven teenth century, the preachers of the estab' ished church were busy laundering out ths1texts that enioin 4the 1. passive obedi- enees of the subject to the sovreign.s When our Slavery controversy arose, the system could plead in its favor the special enactments of the Mosaic code, and the full sanction of the New Testament. Awk- wardly enough, St. Paul had by precept and example enforced the return of thefu- gitiye slave to his master. By similar train. of reasoning, those who maintain the propristy of using alcoholic drinks for con viMYa purposes, argue that .Christ's first miracle is entirely conclusive of that ques- tion. a13i9 Al@EfSl aI!4 ,5j q 7s5- faz a t, ,Ws heartily wish that some of our total- abstinence, strict scriptural constructionists, who maintain that the obedience of the wife to the husband is q perpetual obligation, who find, a complete divorce statute in Matthew V. i32., could have heard the ser mon delivered by the rector of St. Mi chaers church in this place, on Sunday morning last He argued most conclusive ly that the Bible teaches temperance. not total abstinence; that wine is a blessing, 8 thing to I" gladden. the heart of man;" that only in exceptional cases can total ab- stinenee be considered as Christian du- ty.A good many people ilow-a-days would have been much better pleased, he shrewd- ly yremarked, if instead of turning water into, wine, Christ had turned wine into wa. ters We have never been ableto see how the strict eteconstructionistca can answer this argu- ment; how churches that extract the dogma ofiNoman s spbjection from the injunetions of Sk RauIto women degraded by the evil customs of his day, ocan condemn chris tians for indulging taste Christ wrought his first miracle to .gratify. That the miracle in question should stand a perpetual bar to all total-abstinence eff fort, we cannot believe. Much that was necessary and proper under the reign of Tiberius Cesar has ceased to be necessary or proper now. The passive obedience of subject tosoyereign, of servant to master (withsa fear and trembling''), are happily out. of datea A Declaration like that of 1776 would have seemed as objectionable toSt. Panl leigteep hundred years ago, as itS16es to the Pope of Romesnow; and St. Paul would have been as clearly iustifiable an the Pope is uniustifable in entertaining sdchaa notion. a<A copy of the Constitn- tion of the United States would have been of just about as much practical use to the old Roman Senate, as copy of a Total kbstinence Pledge to m old Jewish syna- gogue. Each seem to us excellent things in fheirdw way, but as Inappropriate to the cohamunftiesio of those times as a Prohibit tory law seems to be too the American city ofreuradey. h short, the Bible is foun. taia general principles nota collection of social and political precedents; and those who so view it err as grieyeously as thoseaothersjWhe have sought to make il . . text book of astronomy and gaoloQy.
 
 IhrERIAIasM IN FRANCE. The hasty tenn. per of 2 Bonaparte threatens the iumedi, ate downfan of the dynaaty of that family, in Fianob. Rochefort is unquestionably . tatklspassd demagogns; bat his arraign. alsnt is likely to prove great political blundsr. If the Bonapartes were wise they would overlook the hot language 0, one whose friend and associate they had just killed. Paris is naturally indignant " I-E v Z s~S E f4.4.