V. 21. DRUNKENNESS] Methai, 'intemperances '-copious indulgences in drinks, some of which would have the power of inebriating, though intoxication is not the essence, but only the extreme of the vice condemned by the apostle. The essential of the vice is, that men drink for pleasure, regardless of the law of God or the claims of man.

REVELLINGS] Kōmoi, 'revelries '—the acts of disorder and profligacy attendant on the methai previously named. Concerning the corruption of morals engendered by this conduct, and the degree in which it abounded, both Pliny and Philo, contemporaries of St Paul, have left pictures of the gross sensuality of that age. Pliny writes (book xiv. c. 28), “If any one will take the trouble duly to consider the matter, he will find that upon no one operation is the industry of man kept more constantly on the alert than upon the making of wine, as if nature had not given us water as a beverage,-the one, in fact, of which all other animals make use. We, on the other hand, even go so far as to make our very beasts of burden drink wine!-so vast are our efforts, so vast our labors, and so boundless the cost which we thus lavish upon a liquid which deprives man of his reason, and drives him to frenzy and to the commission of a thousand crimes. So great, however, are its attractions, that a great part of mankind are of opinion that there is nothing else in life worth living for. Nay, what is even more than this, that we may be enabled to swallow all the more, we have adopted the plan of diminishing its strength by pressing it through filters of cloth, and have devised numerous inventions whereby to create an artificial thirst. To promote drinking we find that even poisonous mixtures have been invented, and some even are known to take a dose of hemlock before they begin to drink, that they may have the fear of death before them to make them take their wine.* Others, again, take powdered pumice for the same purpose; and various other mixtures, which I should feel quite ashamed any further to enlarge upon. We see the more prudent among those who are given to this habit, have themselves parboiled in hot baths, from whence they are carried away half dead. Others, again, cannot wait till they have got to the banqueting couch—no, not so much as till they have got their shirt on, -but, all naked and panting as they are, the instant they leave the bath they seize hold of large vessels filled with wine, to show off, as it were, their mighty powers, and so gulp down the whole of the contents, only to vomit them up again the very next moment. This they will repeat, too, a second and even a third time. And then, too, what vessels are employed for holding wine!-carved all over with the representations of adulterous intrigues, as if, in fact, drunkenness itself was not sufficiently capable of teaching us lessons of lustfulness."

Philo, in his treatise on 'Drunkenness,' refers to "the contrivances displayed in the preparation of different kinds of wine to produce some the effects of which shall speedily go off, and which shall not produce headache; but, on the contrary, shall be devoid of any tendency to heat the blood, and shall be very fragrant, admitting either a copious or a scanty admixture with water, according as the object is to have a strong and powerful draught or a gentle and imperceptible one." And describing those who are 'insatiably fond of wine,' he states, "After they have drunk they are still thirsty, and they begin drinking at first out of small cups; then, as they proceed, they tell their servants to bring them wine in larger goblets; and when they are pretty full and getting riotous, being no longer able to restrain themselves, they take bowls and goblets of all the largest sizes that they can get, and drink the wine unmixed in huge draughts, until they are either over

• Wine was believed to be the only antidote to the poison of hemlock.

come by deep sleep, or till what they have poured into themselves is vomited out again through repletion."*

It may not be easy to decide whether the apostle had any motive in bringing up the rear of all the sins enumerated with 'drunkenness' and 'revellings'; but it is incontrovertible that to them may be traced, as to a fountain, many of the other evils, or at least their prevalence. Very solemn is the declaration that, equally with these transgressions and crimes, will drunkenness and revelling exclude their subjects from the kingdom of God. How can it be otherwise?-for what more than they grieves the Holy Spirit, and effectually excludes the possible existence of that state of mind and heart which can alone render heaven a place of enjoyment to the human soul?

CHAPTER V. VERSES 22-24.

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. 24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

V. 23. TEMPERANCE] Enkrateia, 'self-restraint.' Conybeare and Howson render by 'self-denial.' This fruit of the Spirit-the one last named-stands in opposition to the associated vices named in ver. 21. [See Note on Acts xxiv. 25.] Against such virtues and graces there is no law, for they are the evidences of that spiritual decalogue which Christ writes upon all hearts that He makes His own. Those who are Christ's-who belong to Him by a regenerating influence—' have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts'; they no longer do what is pleasing to the flesh because it is so, but what is pleasing to Christ, who loved them and gave Himself for them.

CHAPTER VI. VERSES 7, 8.

7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. 8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.

As the seed, so the produce; as the sowing, so the reaping. The correspondence is invariably preserved. So in the fable, when dragon's teeth were sown, armed men sprang up. As true Science, therefore, consists in tracing effects to their causes, so true Wisdom lies in avoiding the causes of evil, and seeking to substitute the causes of happiness and goodness. To foster the causes and expect different consequences is the extreme of irrationality, and must bring with it perpetual disappointment. Of such unreason, however, the world is guilty when it clings to strong drink and drinking fashions, and all the while hopes and expects that intemperance will cease! On a visitation of cholera or typhus to a locality, the development of the seeds of the pestilence in any particular individual cannot be predicted, but there can be little uncertainty as to the fact that it will be developed amongst some persons most recipient of its influence. So the connection of drinking

Hence the need of warning, in that day, against being 'given to much wine'-whether inebriat ing, or not.

with drunkenness cannot be asserted of any particular person who begins to drink, but may be positively affirmed of some in any moderate aggregation of such beginners. The legitimate conclusion is-the rejection of strong drink, not the fatalistic, pseudo-philosophical dogma that drunkenness must necessarily exist. If a nation will create and cultivate a taste for alcoholic liquors-will foster it by fashion and feed it by license,-the curse of intemperance must surely visit it, whatever is then done to avert it. The nexus cannot be broken, but the artificial appetite and habit may.

CHAPTER VI. VERSE 9.

And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

Well-doing is sowing good seed; such seed will spring up. The sower, if he do not faint, will reap the fruit; therefore let him not be weary in 'well doing.' 'Whatsoever ye sow, of that,' not of some other kind,' 'ye will reap.' Good as certainly results from good as evil from evil. Convinced that we have what is good, let us then plentifully sow it, in confidence of a fruitful harvest in reserve. This promise will, as a rule, be fulfilled in a measure even upon earth; and what this world does not yield, 'the world to come' will unfailingly supplement and supply. The well-doing spoken of is not restricted to direct Christian teaching, and the Temperance Reform has produced some of the most striking illustrations of this great providential law which modern times have witnessed. Let all who desire the weal of humanity engage in this sphere of well-doing, and the land will be covered with the precious harvest of their labors.

CHAPTER VI. VERSE 10.

As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

OPPORTUNITY] Kairon, 'season.' This is the condition of active usefulness. 'Let us do good,' ergazōmetha to agathon, let us work what is good' to all, primarily to those who are of the household of the faith. No principle of benevolent action can be wider than this-every opportunity, every kind of good, every class of person. If, therefore, abstinence affords an opportunity of service to our fellow-creatures, it is a means of working good,' not to be despised or neglected without a clear violation of this law of Christian conduct. To say, 'I don't believe abstinence would supply such a means of good,' is no justification of indifference unless we have first given it a fair and careful trial.

THE EPISTLE OF

ST PAUL TO THE EPHESIANS.

CHAPTER V. VERSE 18.

And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirti.

AND BE NOT DRUNK WITH WINE] Kai mee methuskesthe oinō, 'and be not surcharged with wine.' Drinking immense quantities of wine was common among the Greeks, and (strange as it may appear to modern bibbers) the intoxicating liquors used were largely diluted, with the express intention of making the potations both deep and prolonged. Public sentiment in Athens, in the time of Plato, did not go beyond condemning drunkenness—and not always that, for at the festivals of Dionysius (Bacchus) 'the giver of wine,' an abnegation of sobriety was almost universal !

IN WHICH] En ho, in which.' The subject of this which may be the previous word 'wine,' or the whole of the preceding clause; that is, it may signify 'in which wine,' or 'in which state of vinous intemperance.' Bengel's note is emphatic,—En hò, in quo vino scilicet quatenus immoderate hauritur, ‘in which wine, evidently, since it is immoderately swallowed.' Doddridge takes the same view, and regards this construction as a beautiful figure. Having before him the Lxx. rendering of Prov. xx. 1-akolaston oinos, 'wine is an incorrigible thing,'— the apostle might readily affirm that 'in' wine, estin asōtia, there is unsavableness.' Nor would such an affirmation be purely figurative, seeing that the alcoholic element is the active producer of that appetite and that sensuality which plunge multitudes into perdition.

IS EXCESS] Estin asōtia, 'is unsavableness' = utter depravity and dissoluteness. The word asōtia is compounded of a and sōtia, and literally signifies the absence of salvation—a state of hopeless moral disintegration and ruin. Clement of Alexandria, in his Pædagogue,' b. ii., says :-"I admire those who desire no other beverage than water, the medicine of a wise temperance, avoiding wine as they would fire. It is desirable young men and maidens should forego this medicament altogether, for . . . hence arise irregular desires and licentious conduct; . . . the whole body is excited before its time by the action of wine on the system. The body inflames the soul. . . . Well, then, has the apostle said, 'Be not surcharged with wine, in which is asōtia, a shameful licentiousness.' He seems to signify the impossibility of salvation (sōteeria) to drunkards, for the word asōteia, in Greek, means equally luxury,' and an incapacity for salvation.”—(A. D. 200.) Similarly the French word roué, 'one broken on the wheel,' is also applied to an utter profligate.

The rendering excess' is very tame; and, being a mere repetition of the idea

contained in 'drunk,' is a platitude unworthy of inspiration. More to the point is Wiclif's version, ‘And nyle ye be drunken of wyne, in whiche is leecherie.' The Rheims V. has 'wherein is riotousnes.' The Vulgate has luxuria, 'luxuriousness,' akin to the word which it supplies in Prov. xx. 1,—luxuriosa res vinum est. Beza has luxus, 'wantonness' or 'extravagance.' Calvin says, In quo nomine intelligo lascivias omne genus et dissolutiones, ‘by which term I understand all kind of impurities and dissipations.' The epithet as an adverb occurs in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke xv. 13), where the words rendered in A. V. 'in riotous living' are zōn asōtōs, 'living ruinously.'

BUT BE FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT] Alla pleerousthe en Pneumati, ‘but be ye filled in spirit,' or 'with the Spirit.' Either "be not filled-full of wine as to your body, as the heathen are, but be ye filled in your spirit with all holy influences"; or, "let your fulness be not that of wine, but of the Spirit which you have received by faith in Christ." The first interpretation is favored by the absence of the article to (the) before Pneumati (Spirit), but the other is generally adopted, and the signification is not different; for if, as all commentators agree, the mee methuskesthe of the first clause is in apposition with the pleerousthe of the second, the oinos of the one requires an expressed or implied agent to correspond, which can be no other than the Holy Spirit, given to those that believe. Dr Eadie, in his Commentary, rejects the opinion that the apostle alludes, as in 1 Cor. xi., to any abuse of the old love-feasts, or of the Lord's Supper; and he contrasts the vain attempt of men of the world to keep full of the wine whose fumes and stimulation are evanescent, with the Christian's full possession by the influences of the Spirit, which are not only powerful, but replete with satisfaction to the heart of man.' Conybeare and Howson give the following as the sense of the whole passage: "When you meet, let your enjoyment consist not in fulness of wine, but fulness of the Spirit; let your songs be not the drinking-songs of heathen feasts, but psalms and hymns; and their accompaniment not the music of the lyre, but the melody of the heart; while you sing them to the praise, not of Bacchus or Venus, but of the Lord Jesus Christ."

Obs. 1. The apostle's Divine philosophy at once goes to causes. He presents in this verse a practical antithesis between fulness of wine and fulness of the Divine Spirit; not an antithesis between one state of fulness and another-mere effects,— but an antithesis pointing to an intrinsic contrariety of nature and operation between the sources of such fulness-viz., inebriating wine and the Holy Spirit. This contrast will be better understood by quoting the preceding words, 'Wherefore be ye not unwise' (aphrones, without reason)= not forgetting how antagonistic to the full possession and exercise of your mind the use of wine comes to be, taken in quantities that some may not call excessive.

2. Whether the asōtia, 'dissoluteness,' be referred to wine as its germinal and active principle, or to 'drunkenness' as the state of body and mind which brings the profligacy into play, the fact of connection is affirmed, and is to be solemnly taken into account in all Christian enterprises and efforts of reformation. When intoxicating liquor exerts its specific effects it places the subject in astōia, which is not merely a state in which he cannot be saved, but is synonymous with a condition of moral corruption quite inimical to the reception of saving truth. Alcohol deranges the functions of the brain-the medium of mental action,—and tends to bring about organic disease, so that its influence on mind and morals is entirely different in character from the influence of such evil inclinations and habits as leave the brain in healthy rapport with the intellectual powers. Hence the renunciation