Litchfield enquirer., 1871-03-02
For the Enquirer. TEMPERANCE.

rance Address ct the Court House, a few weeks since. was very clever and effective all the better adapted perhaps to it's pur- pose than if it had been more conformed to the canons of refined taste. The terri ble effects of 1ntemperance were vividly portrayed; and the great undeniable posi- tion, that if everybody would totally ab- stain from all intoxicating drinks, drunk enness and all the miseries. vices and crimes it engenders would cease, was for oibly urged.
 I have always regarded this as the right and just position for teetotallers to take not the sin but the danger of drinking. II has always seemed to me desirable that those who advocate total abstinence should urge it upon the ground, (1.) that it is the certain and the only certain security against intemperance and its. evils, and O.
 that it is high charity for the tenn
 perate to abstain themselves, for the sake of others.
 But the speaker took still farther posi- tion. namely, that all wine-drinking was absolutely forbidden by the Word of God. In proof of this, he quoted the passage
 Proverbs g. 31): "Look not Aou upon Me sOins ,ohen it is red, schea n giueth his color in the cup. Ohen t moueth itsey aright" These words. he said. are an absolute and unqual- flied divine command not even to look up. on the ruby wine, it's bubble and sparkle in the cup; and cannot deny that this is their strict and literal meaning. And his argument was this: If God, in this pas sage, forbids us to look upon the wine, much more does He forbid us to drink it: the prohibition to look upon it necessarily carries with it Ia to'tior) the prohibition to drink drop of it. admit that the ar- gument is irresistible:
 Whoever does what Gods word forbids sins against God:
 Whoever drinks wine does what Gods word forbids: ...... ..5
 Therefore. whoever drinks wine sins against God. .... ....
 Grant the premises, there is no avoiding the conclusion. We must accept it and all the consequences it carries with it. Not to signalize all the consequences, here is one.
 Jesus Christ, the Founder of Christian. ity, did these things:
 O. He habitually drank wine.-Matt. II: 19; Luke 2: 34;
 (2.) He miraculeusly provided it for others to drink.-John 2: 1-11.
 Y) He bade his disciples drink it, Matt. 26: 2s, %. .-. ...a
 It must therefore be admitted-as a ne cessary consequence from the principle that all wine drinking is sin--that Jesus Christ sinned and promoted sin in others. Is it to be wondered at if many who hold this principle have been led to reject Christianity? Is it not best for Christians to pause before adopting the principle? Is it not best to consider whether the text in Proverbs and all other passages of the Bible that seem to carry on their face anything of meaning such as that which this Temperance lecturer put upon that text. are not intended to forbid the sin of incorporate excess in the use of wine and to warn us against the danger of falling into it?
 Does not this interpretation enable us to construe the numerous other passages of Scripture-which carry palpably on their face the Divine recognition and sane. tion of the use of wine-to construe them in such way that we need neither put the Bible into contradiction with itself, nor avoid doing so only by explaining away into nothing the obvious meaning of those pas- sages2 If the Bible seems, on the one hand. to say that intoxicating drinks must not be used. and on the other hand to say that they may be used-and it cannot be denied that this is the case-what is the rule for reconciling the seeming contradic- tion required by common sense and the acknowledged principles of interpretation of all books, and especially of one SO full of seeming contradictions as the Bible2 Does it allow us to nullify either the one or the other class of passages? Plainly not. They must both be let stand side by side. What is the interpretation that allows them to stand, and yet brings them into harmony |? Is it not this: that there is such thing as an ,nsinful ase of wine and strong drink, and that there is such thing as a sinful abuse of them; that the use is permitted, the abuse forbidden; that those passages of the Bible which seem to permit the use of them, sanction no incorporate excess, and those passages which seem to forbid the use of them. forbid only excess and 
 And,in fine, does not this interpretation put the responsibility of every human be- ing in regard to the use of intoxicatinec drink upon the same footing as in regard to all other things which may become temptations to sin, but which God has permitted to exist and to lie around us in this state of moral probation in which He has been pleasad to lSlaea us9 ss