formity of practice does not prevail. There is mucn evidence, of an unimpeachable sort, on the other side. Mr. Allen, an authority on all matters pertaining to modern Judaism, writes, with reference to the wine of the Passover: "They [the Jews] are forbidden to drink any liquor made from grain, or that has passed through the process of fermentation. Their drink is either pure water or raisin-wine prepared by themselves."* Dr. S. M. Isaacs, an eminent Jewish rabbi, and formerly chief editor of "The Jewish Messenger," says: "The Jews do not, in their feasts for sacred purposes, including the marriage feast, ever use any kind of fermented drinks. In their oblations and libations, both private and public, they employ the fruit of the vine—that is, fresh grapes-unfermented grape-juice and raisins, as the symbol of benediction. Fermentation is to them always a symbol of corruption, as in nature and science it is itself decay, rottenness." + Another leading rabbi of New York city has recently testified, that "Fermented wine, as every thing fermented, is rigidly excluded from our Passover fare, in accordance with the spirit of the divine command, Exodus xii, 19." In accounting for and estimating this conflicting, not to say contradictory, evidence, it is necessary to bear in mind that there are two distinctly marked parties among the Jews-the one orthodox, the other liberal. The former, who are strict in their interpretation of the Law and in their obedience to its requirements, rigorously exclude all fermented drinks from the feast of the Passover. The latter, who are latitudinarian in doctrine and lax in practice, deny that the law of the Passover extends to the wine. Not a few of this school place the wines of commerce on the paschal board; some neglect altogether the ordinance of their fathers; others rob the rite of all significance by denying the supernatural character of the events which it commemorates. There is good reason for believing, however, that the stricter or orthodox view prevailed in our Lord's day. So impartial an authority as Dr. A. P. Peabody says that he "has satisfied himself, by careful research, that at our Saviour's

* "Modern Judaism," London, 1830, p. 394.

+ Quoted in Patton, "Bible Wines," p. 83.

Quoted by Dr. Charles Beecher in "The New Englander," July, 1882, p. 520. S"The Monthly Review," vol. xliii, p. 41.

*

time the Jews-at least the high ritualists among them-extended the prohibition of leaven at the Passover season to the principle of fermentation in every form; and that it was customary at the Passover festival for the master of the household to press the contents of the cup' from clusters of grapes preserved for this very purpose." And Dr. Charles Beecher declares that "after a somewhat careful search" he has come to the same conclusion. But whatever may be the facts in the case, however much the Jews may have misunderstood the law, perverted its meaning, overlaid it with their traditions, or made it of none effect by their practices, it does not affect the matter at issue. It is not their custom which we are endeavoring to determine, but the conduct of Christ. And about this there ought to be, and there can be, no controversy. He who came "not to destroy, but to fulfill,” (Matt. v, 17,) and whom it became "to fulfill all righteousness," (Matt. iii, 15,) could not ignorantly, and would not intentionally, have broken or infringed the Law, either in its letter or in its spirit. He could not have celebrated the Passover in a wine which had undergone fermentation, and so had become a symbol of corruption.

We advance another step now, and proceed to consider

ii. The language in which the institution of the Lord's Supper is recorded.-This is preserved to us with singular uniformity in the first three Gospels, and in almost the same form in St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians. The words of these records are largely the personal utterances of Christ himself, so that they come to us with especial significance, and each adds its own weight to the argument. After mentioning the blessing and breaking of the bread, the narratives continue: a. "And he took (received, Luke) the cup-τò TоτýρLov—and gave thanks”—εvxaρioτńoas—(Matt. xxvi, 27; Mark xiv, 23; Luke xxii, 17.) St. Paul simply says: "After the same manner also the cup," (1 Cor. xi, 25.) Some good manuscripts omit the article before "cup" in Matthew and Mark, but its use by Luke and Paul is undoubted. The reference, as most authorities agree, is to the third of the four cups at the passover meal, called the "cup of benediction," (Cos ha-Berachah.) It was this cup with which the Christian ordinance was

*The New Englander," July, 1882, p. 520.

thanks as he consecrated it to its new and holier uses. And, when it had been transferred to the sacramental table, it was still called "the cup of blessing," (1 Cor. x, 16.) It is not necessary to suggest that "the cup" is put by metonomy for its contents. They were the subject of thanksgiving, the medium of blessing. Such, indeed, would be the pure and nutritious juice of the grape. Such never could be the wine upon which God had poured his maledictions, and upon which he had warned his children not to look. We cannot conceive of Christ bending over such a beverage in grateful prayer. The supposition is sacrilegious. The imputation is blasphemous. No cup that can intoxicate is a cup of blessing, but a cup of cursing. It is not "the cup of the Lord," but "the cup of devils." (1 Cor. X, 21.) It does not belong to a eucharistic feast, but is the fit accompaniment of scenes of revelry and riot.

inaugurated. For it the great Founder of the feast gave

b. "And gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it," ПíɛTe ¿§ avtoũ távtes, literally, Drink all ye of this, (Matt. xxvi, 27.) "And they all drank of it," (Mark xiv, 23.) "Take this and

divide it among yourselves," (Luke xxii, 17.) Why Christ should have singled out the wine, and insisted that all should partake of that, may not be plain, but the fact is patent. Rome, in attempted justification of her course in denying the cup to the laity, may limit the injunction to the apostles and their ecclesiastical successors, but Protestantism easily exposes the falsity of such an interpretation. All of Christ's true disciples every-where are commanded to drink of the sacramental cup. There is no exception, absolutely none. If the contents of that cup be the uncorrupted and nutritious juice of the grape, there need be none. But if they be the fermented wine so many allege, then there are many of our Saviour's faithful followers who cannot and who ought not to partake. There are constitutions to which alcohol in any form or quantity is an active poison,* and there are none to which it is not more or less harmful. It ought never to pass the pure

"There are some persons on whom the smallest quantity of alcohol seems to act like the taste of blood on a tiger, producing in them a wild desire for more, and destroying all self-control. For them alcohol is a poison, and total abstinence their only safeguard." Dr. Brunton, editor of "The London Practitioner," in "The Alcohol Question," p. 26.

lips of children, than whom none are more welcome at the Lord's table. It should never be put into the hands of those "who are practically unable to avoid excess if they use wine at all," much less should it be put to the lips of one in whom the simple taste, and sometimes even the mere smell of alcohol awakens a dormant or conquered appetite, and becomes the initial step to a course of headlong dissipation and irremediable ruin.† Yet such has been the sad history of not a few souls.+ Can it be that He who taught his disciples to pray "Lead us not into temptation," has made his memorial table a place of overmastering temptation to any, and of possible danger to all?

C. "For this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." (Matt. xxvi, 28; Mark xiv, 24, omits "for the remission of sins;" Luke xxii, 20, also omits this clause, and reads, "which is shed for you;' 1 Cor. xi, 25, omits both these clauses.) Up to this moment the blood of bulls and of goats had represented the blood of Christ; henceforth the wine of the Supper was to stand as its symbol. (Heb. ix, 13, 14.) But we undertake to say that fermented wine could not suitably serve this purpose. It is not a proper symbol of blood in general. Its only possible resemblance to blood is its color. But that characteristic does not pertain to it exclusively, and the point of the symbolism, as Meyer has shown, § does not lie in the color. In every other particular, the argument is altogether with the unfermented * Prof. Bumstead, "Bibliotheca Sacra," January, 1881, p. 92.

"Alcohol is a veritable physical demon, which, once introduced into the blood of many a reformed inebriate, even after the lapse of a long term of strict sobriety, may rage through his veins like a consuming fire, and hurry him into the lowest depths of his long-abandoned and sincerely-repented-of sin.. It is difficult for any one inexperienced in the treatment of dipsomania to realize the truth. But so real is the danger, that, Churchman as I am, even when a drinker myself, I never allowed any reformed drunkard to go near a communion-table where an intoxicating liquor was presented. In this practice I am supported by Dr. Richardson, Dr. Fergus, Surgeon-General Francis, and other experts in the higher ranks of the medical profession. I would as soon have thought of putting a loaded pistol in the hands of a maniac in a lucid interval, bidding him take care not to shoot himself." Dr. Norman Kerr, in "Wines, Scriptural and Ecclesiastical," pp. 98, 99, who cites the very positive testimony of the above-mentioned physicians on the subject.

Vide testimony of Dr. Duffield in "Bible Rule of Temperance," p. 134. §"Comm." on Matt. xxvi, 28.

wine, as so eminent an authority as Dr. B. W. Richardson has pointed out. He says:

The constituent parts actually of blood and of the expressed wine are strikingly analogous. One of the most important elements of the blood, that which keeps it together, that which Plato speaks of as the "plastic parts of the blood," is the fibrine, and that is represented in the gluten of the unfermented wine. If we come to the nourishing part of the blood, that which we call the mother of the tissues, we find it in the unfermented grape, in the albumen, and that is also present in the blood; and if we come to all the salts, there they are in the blood, and the proportion is nearly the same in the unfermented wine as in the blood; and if we come to the unfermented parts of the wine which go to support the respiration of the body, we find them in the sugar. Really and truly, on a question of symbolism, if there be any thing at all in that, the argument is all in favor of the use of unfermented wine.*

Again, fermented wine cannot be a proper symbol of Christ's blood. The warm current which pulsates in human veins is not pure. It has been tainted by sin. This taint is the accumulated heritage of generations of transgressors. And a wine in which some trace of fermentation had begun the work of corruption might not unfitly represent such blood. But the blood of Christ was absolutely pure. There was no touch or taint of sin in his veins. "He whom God raised again saw no corruption," (Acts xiii, 37,) either in life or in death. And of the contents of the eucharistic cup he declared "this is my blood." Then it was pure, as fresh and uncontaminated as the clustered drops within the unburst grape.† Again, fermented wine cannot be an appropriate symbol of Christ's blood as the means of man's redemption and sanctification. Such "a defunct and deleterious liquor" could be a proper emblem only of depravity and death. While "the fresh juice of the cluster, *From an address delivered at a select conference in London after a paper by Dr. Norman Kerr, on "Wines, Scriptural and Ecclesiastical." "National Temperance Advocate," March, 1882, p. 37.

It may be regarded as a strong confirmation of this view of the case, that in every instance where Christ alone was typified in the sacrifices, offerings, and feasts of the Old Testament, the use of leaven, the element and emblem of corruption, was prohibited, as in the trespass offering (Lev. vi, 17,) and the meat offering, (Lev. ii, 11;) while in those instances where God's people were typified, as in the two loaves which constituted the meat offering of the feast of Pentecost, (Lev. xxiii, 17,) the use of leaven was enjoined.