Permanent temperance documents of the American Temperance Society. Vol. I.

Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Permanent temperance documents of the American Temperance Society. Vol. I. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    559] intoxicating power, or feel its poisonous and deranging effects, will tend to render you more unlike to God ; to hinder you from having access to the throne of his mercy ; from being filled with his fulness ; or, in his light, seeing light. It will tend to make you less wise by his wisdom, and less strong in his strength ; and cause you to be less comforted with his consolations. It will tend to make your labors less efficacious, in turning men to right- eousness, and will thus exert an influence which will tend to pre- vent their deliverance from sin and death ; and to cause “ those who are filthy, to remain filthy still.” While many who may not have your self-control, or your aid from on high, may be em- boldened by your example, to use that, which will lead them on- ward, from one degree of indulgence to another, till they sink down in the agonies of the second death. Not a few who once held your sacred and responsible office, have looked upon with desire, and have taken the intoxicating poison, “ when it gave its color in the cup, and moved itself arightand have found, by woful experience, that, “ at the last, it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.” And, although the way which they took, through the blinding influence of their practice, may “ have seemed right unto them, the end thereof was the way of death.” And they now lie as so many beacons to warn those who may come after them, not to take the first step in the road which led them to ruin. Nor did they perish alone. Multitudes, deluded and hardened, through their influence, went on blindfold, till they also sunk, irretrievably into the same place of torment. And other multitudes, in greater and greater numbers, were, by their example, prejudiced fatally against the gospel, and all means for bringing them under its illuminating and purifying power. So that, instead of being, as it is adapted to be, “ a savor of life unto life,” it has been, to them, “ a savor of death unto death.” For your own sake, therefore, for your hearers’ sake, and for the sake of the community; for the sake of our divine and glori- ous Redeemer, who, for us, made the greatest of all sacrifices, and for the sake of that precious cause, for which he agonized in the garden, expired on the cross, and now intercedes in heaven, break off, we do beseech, all connection with this destroyer. As it makes so many to “ offend,” even unto death, have nothing to do with it, “ while the world standeth.” And labor unceasingly, “in all suitable ways, to discountenance the use of it throughout the community.” More than three thousand of your number in the United States, and many among the most distinguished of all other professions, have adopted this course ; and, for the sake of doing good to others, by example, have publicly pledged them- selves to abstain from it. Unite your influence with theirs, and