A lecture on the harmony of teetotalism, with the divine word : as expressed in the authorized version of the Bible (with answers to several objectors) / abridged from the works of Dr. Lees, and printed for general circulation.

  • Frederic Richard Lees
Date:
[between 1850 and 1859]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture on the harmony of teetotalism, with the divine word : as expressed in the authorized version of the Bible (with answers to several objectors) / abridged from the works of Dr. Lees, and printed for general circulation. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tradition wisely places the first man in a garden, where trees of an innocent character alone are planted,—superadding, that he was there instructed to discriminate, from other products, those which the Cre¬ ator had adapted for food. The record is preserved, but in general terms, for our instruction; so that we may compare our modern devices with the primseval arrangements of the Edenic constitution. What was the law ? “ And god said—Behold, I have given you every herb, shedding seed, on the “face of all the earth,—and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree, “yielding seed,—to you it shall be fob. food.3’ Now the process of maufacturing alcoholic drink, by brewing and fermenting—to say nothing of sabbath-malting,—not only manifests discontent with the finished dietetic arrangements of God, in provi¬ dence as in Paradise,—but it involves a direct and needless violation of the divine law, and an awful waste and wholesale destruction of human food. That which God, the All-Eatker, gives in his mercy as food for all,—individual men—no matter under what legal or social sanction—wilfully destroy. Nay, it is worse than destruction—for it is not only the conversion of the solid into the fluid, but the transmu¬ tation of actual bread into a drink which poisons and pollutes alike the social and the physical life of man. That I have read the Divine ap¬ pointment aright, is evident from the literal rendering of a Mosaic law delivered 3000 years later. “'When thou shalt besiege a city .. thou shcdt not spoil the trees thereof by driving an axe against them; ... Bor is the tree of the field [God planted] a man that it should be besieged by thee? ... only trees which thou knowest [are] not trees for food, thou mayest corrupt and cut down.” In this sense the law has been understood throout the East. In the instructions given by the conquering Caliphs to their officers in command of the army in Syria, we find this injunction:—“ Destroy not the palms—burn not the wheat—cut not down the fruit trees.” p I will only observe, that simply to burn the grain now converted into drink, would be a comparative blessing to the community: the drink could not then burn out the virtue and health of our population. Men foolishly enquire, Why God gives us the barley and the grape ? Eor c meat/ says God—not drink—and therefore it is solid. What a strange insanity to suppose the Creator to grow a solid, which the Creature must convert into fluid before it is useable! The concep¬ tions of Moses were very different. “ When ye shall come into the land, and shall have planted all [sorts] of trees for food, ... in the fifth year shall ye eat th q fruit thereof.” And Isaiah, discoursing of the new heavens and the new earth, wherein righteousness shall dwell, assures us that the old law of Paradise lost, shall be the law of Paradise regained; and that the ancient connexion between long-life and temperance shall be estab¬ lished once more:— “ They shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them; “They shall not plant and another eat; “Bor as the days of a tree shall be the days of my people ... “Bor they are a race blessed by Jehovah, “And their offspring shall remain to them.” A law of drink would have been an absurdity, since law implies choice, and ehoice variety. But in Eden, as in Nature, there is not variety, Gen. i. 29. Deut. xx 19, 20. A.D. 700. Lev. xix. 23-5. Isaiah lxv. 21-3.