regard intoxicating liquor as a necessity, or even a valuable auxiliary, of life, and as an innocent vehicle of enjoyment and social entertainment; let him remain ignorant of all that can be said, and has been proved, to the contrary; let him consider the intemperance arising from strong drink to be one of the inevitable forms of natural depravity, and therefore to be classed in its origin as well as its results with other sins of the flesh; let him persuade himself that the ordinary means of Christian evangelization are sufficient to eradicate this prolific vice with its dismal progeny of social curses: let all this be done, and it will no longer appear surprising that many of the allusions contained in both the Old and New Testaments are construed in favour of the use of such drink, and that other passages, clearly opposite in their tendency, should be ignored or explained away. This may be done in perfect good faith, and without any consciousness of the process by which the one-sided exegesis is wrought out.

Accordingly, when the Temperance Reformation began, some of the earliest arguments brought against it were borrowed (as was supposed) from the armoury of Scripture Texts; and down to the present time many who hold aloof from that cause, defend their estrangement by a similar appeal to Scripture precedent and approval. Some even now go the length of charging Abstainers with a conduct at variance not only with the privileges, but with the duties of the Christian dispensation, and accuse them of seeking to impose a code of asceticism contrary to the genial and liberal spirit of the Gospel. In controverting what have been represented as the views of Temperance writers upon the wines named in Scripture, some critics have ignorantly attributed to them the most absurd positions—such as that all those wines were unfermented and uninebriating,—while they themselves have neglected to distinguish between the various terms translated 'wine,' and have confounded the use of intoxicating liquor by men of old, and the permission of such use, with the express sanction and blessing of God.

To some friends of the Temperance movement a Work of this character may appear superfluous. Certain of them may be disposed to deny that the question is one for Bible arbitration or reference at all; while others may be prepared to concede that Scripture permits and approves the use of Strong Drink, though also permitting and approving of abstinence from it. It is in vain, however, to expect that the Bible will cease to be quoted as an authority on the subject of Temperance; nor is it desirable that its store of facts should be

overlooked, or its testimony left unexamined and disregarded. Those who contend that 'liberty to abstain' is all that is needed as an argumentative basis for abstinence, will find themselves undeceived when they attempt to urge the practice upon others as a duty; for how can that be a duty, it will be asked, the opposite of which is sanctioned by both the letter and the spirit of the Divine Word? Besides, even the argument from Christian expediency to which such friends attach a high (if not exclusive) importance, cannot be understood without an appeal to passages of Scripture whose true meaning and legitimate bearing have been warmly contested.

In reply to the inquiry, which may not be discourteously proposed, whether the authors of this Commentary can claim to be exempt from a bias in favour of abstinence which may have inspired and controlled their exposition ?-they can but say, that they have been fully sensible of their liability to such an influence, and have therefore endeavoured to counteract its operation by carefully weighing all adverse arguments, and by placing before the reader the materials by which he may form for himself an independent judgment as to the correctness of the inferences drawn. They have honestly sought, with trust in Divine aid, to discover the truth contained in the passages successively discussed; and, in consigning the fruit of their labours to the press, they pray that the blessing of Heaven may attend it so far as it is adapted to promote the faithful, intelligent study of Scripture, and a more perfect sympathy with the spirit of the Psalmist, "Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes; and I shall keep it unto the end. Give me understanding, and I shall keep Thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart."

PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION.

THE following COMMENTARY on certain passages of Holy Writ has been undertaken for the elucidation and development of important and practical, but long-neglected, portions of Divine truth. It is desirable, at starting, that readers who, like the noble Beræans, are willing to search for the truth in the love of it, should understand the special object of the inquiry, and the principles upon which we propose to conduct it. We repudiate entirely every species of Authority,' properly so called. Faith, indeed, must accept the facts of Revelation, just as Philosophy must accept the facts of Nature-using there, however, all reasonable care in the examination ;-but, after that, no mortal intellect can have a monopoly of judgment, or, without presumption, pretend to an infallibility of interpretation. One only rule will hold then,—“ Prove all things: hold fast to that which is" true. As we do not see with the eyes of other men, neither do we claim that other men should see with ours. But what we do assert is, that while the Divine objective Truth is one, not various, so the subjective faculty of Reason is one, working by common laws to common and invincible conclusions. This is the sole guarantee of truth being either possible or actual; and therefore evidence is everything, and bare 'opinion' nothing. On that evidence alone we place our reliance: if it is invalid our inference falls; if otherwise, it will stand; but no imaginable amount of unbelief and dogmatic denial can disturb or overturn it. As the acute Professor Mansel has observed, "it is of little importance to what authority we appeal, so long as the evidence itself will not bear criticism." Were a lawyer, in defending a client, to decline putting facts and evidence before the jury, and content himself with referring to a number of 'learned opinions," both judge and jury would regard his defence either as imbecility calling for pity, or as impudence meriting contempt. But criticism ought to be governed by laws of evidence as strict and unbending as those which are observed in our law courts; and mere 'opinion' ought to be held quite as cheap.

I. The first proposition to be established is one of a purely philological and matter-of-fact character, namely,-That there is nothing in the nature and usage of the words for Wine, etc., in the Bible, which at all teaches that the use of intoxicating drink is in harmony

with the Divine will. This proposition will be proved just as conclusively on the hypothesis that the Bible is a book of simple history, as on the conception of its containing a Divine revelation. The following are the thirteen words of the Original Scriptures which, unfortunately for the English reader, have all been commingled and confused under the translation of the single term WINE, either with or without an adjective of qualification, such as 'new,'' sweet,' 'mixed,' or 'strong,'-namely:-Hebrew, Yayin, Khamar, Shakar, Mesek, Ahsis, Soveh, Tirosh, Ashishah, Shemarim; in Greek, Oinos, Gleukos, Oxos, and Akraton. There are, besides, closely associated with these words, two others the Hebrew adjective Khemer (foaming), and Khometz, translated 'vinegar.' When persons attempt to argue, from the Authorized Version, the merits of the wine question, no wonder they fall into inextricable difficulties and pernicious delusions. Mr De Quincey's observation, in his article on The Philosophy of Herodotus,' is exceedingly apposite :-"How often do we hear people commenting on the Scriptures, and raising up aërial edifices of argument, in which every iota of the logic rests, unconsciously to themselves, upon the accidental words of the English version, and melts away when applied to the original text! so that, in fact, the whole has no more strength than if it were built upon a pun or an équivoque." Nor is it the unlearned alone who are apt to fall into this fallacy. Even so good a Hebraist as Professor Murphy, in referring to Prov. iii. 10 and Joel ii. 24, has distorted the meaning of yeqev and tirosh in order to accommodate their sense to the English mistranslations burst-out' and 'overflow.' Long ago, Dr S. Lee, Hebrew Professor at Cambridge, in the preface to his 'Hebrew Lexicon,' pointed out this teeming source of error:— As to Noldius and the same may be said of lexicographers but too generally, his practice evinces no endeavour beyond that of offering a signification--well suited, as he thought, to each place-which eventually resolves itself into a system of mere conjecture, and one, moreover, which takes for granted that the particular signification he ascribed to every other word in such passage was above all suspicion correct." Thus in the article 'Wine,' in Dr Smith's Dictionary of the Bible,' the writer permits the supposed association of tirosh with a liquid in the famous triad, 'corn, wine, and oil'-to influence his judgment as to the term translated 'wine,' when, in reality, the proper word for 'oil' (shemen) does not occur there as stated; and, moreover, the word translated 'oil' is clearly a mistranslation, the proper meaning of yitzhar being 'orchard-fruit,' if etymology, induction, and context are to have any weight in determining the meaning of language. It is thus under the conjoint influence of prejudice, carelessness, and false conjecture, that errors increase and multiply, and one blunder is made the buttress and bulwark of another.

Mr John Stuart Mill, in his 'System of Logic,' has well laid down an important law of speech:-"Language is the depository of the accumulated experience to which all former ages have contributed their part, and which is the inheritance of all yet to come. It may