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

SacraicizitZal Consistczcy.
few who purchase even the high-priced sorts can have
any real guarantee of their genuine character; hence it is
evident (i) that the unfermented juice of the grape is
more really the "fruit of the vine" than any fermented
wine, however genuine; and (2) that the assurance of
using the " fruit of the vine" at all must be exceedingly
slender in the great majority of cases where the wines of
commerce enter into the sacramental service. It is also
forgotten (2.) Tizat as allferment andfermzenled things were forbidden to the 7ews at the Passover, when the Lord's Supper
was instituted, it is more in accordance with the symbolical meaning of that prohibition (one which the apostle
applies to Christians-i Cor. v. 6-8) to take the unfermented than the fermented juice of the grape. We need
not enter into the controversy whether the Jews celebrated their Passover with fermented or unfermented
wine: if with the former, they must have broken their
law; and whenever they do so now, they break their law;
and those who assume that the Lord used such wine must
also assume that he broke the law he came to fulfil (as a
Jew) to the letter.* Modern science has demonstrated
(what careful observation must always have shown) that
the fermentation of grape-juice is similar to the fermentation of bread or beer; and, therefore, that whatever
spiritual symbolism is conveyed by the absence of fermentation must be expressed more clearly by unfermented than by fermented wine. If it is argued that
consistency would require the bread used to be unleav
* The casuistry by which the modern Jews (who used fermented wine) and
their Christian apologists defend this breach of the Levitical law is a striking
illustration of the leaven of sophistry which characterized the teachirfn of the
Scribes and Pharisees. Its inconsistency is not less marked, for, while some
say that fermented solids only were meant, others assert that the fermentation
of grape-juice is not like the fermentation of beer, and some that the grapejuice does not ferment at all!
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