SACRAMENTAL WINES

Dunstan Times, Issue 2482, 24 May 1909, Page 3

SACRAMENTAL WINES

One of the most important and difficult piestions which confront the Church is that if the use of wine at the Lord's supper. Numbers of clergymen have, in odedience to their convictions, introduced into this rite, in their own churohes, the use of non-intoxica-tion instead of intoxicating wine. We have been told that the Bishop of London grants absolute freedom to the clergy of his diocese as to the character of the wine used in the Holy Communion. Thus the representative body of the Church of England, though deprecating agitation on the subject of the use of unfermented wine does not positively condemn it. This is a significant step, because, this issue once having become debateable, there can be no doubt as to its ultimate settlement. Both intoxicating and unfermented wines were used by the Jews in the time of Christ, but we possess no knowledge whether the wine used by Jesus at the Last Supper was intoxicating or unfermented. The best Hebrew authorities, living and past, either regard intoxicating or unfermented wines as equally lawful in Passover, or lean in the direction of the un fermented wine, inasmuch as fermented (leavened) food was forbidden at Passover. Therefore, either complete liberty as to the use of intoxicating or unfermented wines at the Lord's Supper must be granted, or, to be consistent, the use ofwineatallmust oe abandoned. But aside from the question of the nature of wine used by Jesus, modern discoveries as to the nature and effects of alcohol leave but one alternative in the use of wine to any conscientious clergyman.