The bases of the temperance reform: an exposition and appeal./ With replies to numerous objections. By Rev. Dawson Burns.

I24 Scripture and the Temperance Question.
blunt the sensibilities, and to drown the memory of past
and present sorrows. Where mental activity and selfpossession are required, the exhortation is, "Drink not,"
lest you should-not because you certainly will-be less
fitted to discharge the duties and responsibilities of your
station. An important question now arises, Is there, in
the New Testament, anything answering to the foregoing
declarations? It must be remembered that the Old Testament retained its sacred authority in the Christian
Church on all questions of morality and spiritual truth,
and it was one of the points most carefully insisted upon
by the apostles that the law of liberty in Christ did not
free believers from the law of obedience to that divine
law which is always "just and good," and in the observance of which there is a daily and everlasting reward.
From the peculiarity of their circumstances as builders
of the Christian society, it was not to be expected that
the apostles would decide on questions of civil polity,
diet, and the like. We know they did not; and it was
according to the divine wisdom that they laid down
broad principles of moral right and duty, the application
of which was to be carried on and out under the enlightening and quickening influence of the Holy Spirit. We
find, then, that the apostles did not contradict or in any
way contravene tile judgment passed upon intoxicating
drink by the fathers who wrote as they were moved by
the Holy Ghost. But
(I.) Theyenforceds the vi'rtue of tenfierance (enkrateZa)-the
restraint of the appetites and passions-restraint not only
as to the degree, but also as to the direction of the desires.*
(2.) They enforced the virflue of mental soundness (sofhro'zsmos)-that calmin and judicial state of the faculties, of
* As before remarked (p. IT2), St. Paul speaks with warm commendation of
the temperance of the Grecian athletes, one feature of which consisted in the
exclusion of strong drink.