2. Certain good works are also introduced, and in the first part of
our text Peter makes an especially emphatic continuation of the
admonition in the foregoing part of the chapter, warning Christians to
abstain from gross vices--carnal lusts--which in the world lead to
obscenity, and from the wild, disorderly, swinish lives of the heathen
world, lives of gormandizing, guzzling and drunkenness. Peter
admonishes Christians to endeavor to be "sober unto prayer." The
epistle was written chiefly to the Greeks, the masses of which people
were very social, and inclined to carouse and gormandize. And we
Germans are accused of the same excess; not without some reason
either.
3. With intent to turn Christians from these vices unto temperance and
sobriety, Peter reminds them, as all the apostles are wont to do, of
the obligations particularly incident to the Christian calling, to the
only true, divine service, the things for the sake of which they have
become Christians and which distinguish them from the remainder of the
world. His meaning is: It is not for Christians to lead lives
heathenish, profligate and riotous; to indulge in gormandizing,
guzzling, carousing and demoralizing of themselves. They have
something nobler to do. First, in that they are to become different
beings, and be occupied with the Word of God wherefrom they derive
their new birth and whereby they preserve it. Second, being born anew,
they have enemies to fight; so long as they live on earth, they must
combat the devil, also their own flesh, which is corrupted by the
devil until it is full of evil lusts. Having, then, to assume the
obligations of this calling and contest, they must not give way to
drowsy indolence; much less may they become foolish, drunken sots,
indifferent to all issues and heedless of their obligations. Rather,
they have need to be watchful and sober, ever ready with the Word of
God and with prayer.
4. These are the two kinds of armor, two weapons of defense, whereby
the devil is vanquished and of which he is afraid: First, diligence in
hearing, learning and practicing the Word of God, that instruction,
comfort and strength may be received; second, sincere petitioning upon
the authority of that Word, a crying and calling to God for help when
temptations and conflicts arise. One or the other of these weapons of
defense must continually be in active exercise, effecting perpetual
intercourse between God and man--either God speaking to us while we
quietly listen, or God hearing our utterances to him and our petitions
concerning our needs.
Whichever the weapon we wield, it is unendurable to the devil; he
cannot abide it. Christians need both equipments, that their hearts
may ever turn to God, cleave to his Word, and continually, with
ceaseless longing, pray a perpetual Lord's Prayer. Truly, the
Christian should learn from the temptations and straits wherewith the
devil, the world and the flesh constantly oppress him, to be ever on
his guard, watching for the enemy's point of attack; for the enemy
sleeps not nor rests a single moment.
5. Here is applicable Peter's injunction for the Christian to keep
within the bounds of physical temperance and sobriety; not to overload
the body and injure it by excessive eating and drinking: so as to be
watchful, intelligent, and in a mood, to pray. He who is not careful
to discharge the obligations of his office or station with temperance
and sobriety, but is daily in a sottish condition, is incapable of
praying or performing any other Christian duty; he is unfit for any
service.
6. Right here a special admonitory sermon might well be preached to us
dissolute Germans, in warning for our excesses and drunkenness. But
where would be forthcoming a sermon forcible enough to restrain the
shameful sottishness and the drink devil among us? The evil of
overindulgence has, alas, swept in upon us like a torrent,
overwhelming as a flood all classes. It daily spreads further and
further throughout the nation, embracing every station from the lowest
to the highest. All preaching, all admonition, seem far too weak--not
vain and impotent, but despised and scorned--to meet the emergency.
But the apostles, and even Christ himself, declared that in the end of
the world such a state of affairs should obtain. For that very reason
did Christ (Lk 21, 34) admonish Christians to take heed to themselves
lest at any time their hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and
drunkenness and the cares of this life, and so that day come upon them
unawares.
7. Now, God having in his infinite goodness so richly shed upon us
Germans in these latter times the Gospel light, we ought, in honor and
gratitude to him, to try to reform ourselves in the matter of
intemperance. We should fear lest through this evil besides committing
other sins we draw upon us the wrath and punishment of God. For naught
else can result from the pernicious life of intemperance but false
security, and contempt of God. Individuals continually dead in
drunkenness, buried in excesses, living like swine, cannot fear God,
cannot be occupied with divine things.
8. Had we no other incentive to abandon our intemperate living, the
scandalous reputation we have among the nations ought to move us to
reform. Other countries, particularly those bordering on Germany,
regard us with extreme contempt, calling us drunken Germans. For they
have virtue enough to abstain from excessive drinking. The Turks are
real monks and saints in this respect; so far are they from the evil
of intemperance that in obedience to the teaching of their Mohammed
they prohibit the drinking of wine or any other intoxicant, and punish
the offense as the greatest evil in their midst. For this very reason
are they better soldiers than our drunken masses. They are always
awake and vigilant, alert concerning their own interests, planning
attacks upon us and continually extending their dominion, while we lie
sleeping in our excesses as if we could withstand the Turks by
drunkenness and carousing.
9. But what is the use of multiplying words on the subject when the
evil prevails to such extent as to be common custom in the land? No
longer confined to the rude, illiterate rabble, to country villages
and public taverns, it has penetrated all cities and entered nearly
every house, being particularly prevalent among the nobility--in the
courts of princes. I recall that when I was young drunkenness was
regarded an inexpressibly shameful thing among the peerage, and that
the dear lords and princes restrained it with serious prohibitions and
punishments. But now it is more alarmingly prevalent among them than
among farmers. It is generally the case that when the great and good
begin to go down, they sink to a lower level than others. Yes,
intemperance has attained such prevalence that even princes and lords
have learned the habit from their young noblemen and are no longer
ashamed of it. Rather, they call it honorable, making it a civil
virtue befitting princes and noblemen. Whosoever will not consent to
be a drunken sot with them, must be discountenanced; while the knights
who stand for beer and wine obtain high honors, and great favors and
privileges, on account of their drinking. They desire fame in this
respect, as if they had secured their nobility, their shield and
helmet, by the very fact that they exceed others in the shamelessness
of their tippling.
10. Yes, and have we not further reason for checking the evil when
even the young practice it without fear or shame? They learn it from
the aged, and unrestrained they disgracefully and wantonly injure
themselves in the very bloom of life, destroying themselves as corn is
cut down by hail and tempest. The majority of the finest, most
promising young people, particularly the nobility, they of court
circles, ruin their health, body and life, before arriving at
maturity. How can it be otherwise when they who should restrain and
punish commit the same sins themselves?
11. Hence Germany has always been a wretched country, chastised and
plagued by the drink devil, and completely immersed in this vice,
until the bodies and lives of her people, as well as their property
and honor, are shamefully consumed and only a sordid existence
remains. He who would paint the conditions must portray something
swinish. Indeed, but a small proportion of the inhabitants of Germany
are undebased by this evil. These are children, girls and women. Some
sense of propriety in the matter remains to them, though occasionally
we find even under the veil some intemperance; however, it is with
restraint. Enough modesty remains to inspire the universal sentiment
that so disgraceful a thing is it for a woman to be drunk, such a one
deserves to be trampled upon in the streets.
12. In the light of their example, let us men learn to see our own
shame and to blush for it. While noting how disgraceful is drunkenness
for women, let us remember it is much more so for ourselves. We ought
to be saner and more virtuous; for, according to Peter, the woman is
the weaker vessel. Because of the weakness of women, we ought to have
more patience with them. Man being endowed with a broader mind,
stronger faculties and firmer nature, he should be the saner being,
the farther removed from the brute. It stands to reason that it is a
much greater disgrace for him to indulge in the vice of drunkenness.
In proportion to the nobility of his creation and the exalted nature
wherewith God has endowed him, should be the disgrace of such
unreasoning, brutish conduct on his part.
13. What can be said for us? So complete is the perversion of all
manly virtue and honor in our conduct in this respect that it cannot
be surpassed by any other possible degradation of manhood. There
remains to us but an atom of good reputation, and that is to be found
among the women. The occasional instance of drunkenness among them but
emphasizes our own disgrace. All countries look upon us with scorn and
contempt, regarding us as shameful and sordid creatures, day and night
bent upon making ourselves surfeited and stupid, possessing neither
reason nor intelligence.
The evil would be more tolerable, more excusable, if drinking and
carousing had any limit, if intoxication were but an occasional
thing--the case of a person inadvertently taking one drink too much,
or of taking a stimulant when tired from excessive labor and worry. We
excuse it in women who may chance to drink a little more at wedding
parties than they are accustomed to at home. But this excessive
guzzling kept up unceasingly day and night, emitting only to be filled
again, is wholly inconsistent with the character of a prince, a
nobleman, a citizen, yes, of a human being, not to mention the life of
a Christian; it is really more in keeping with the nature and work of
swine.
14. Now, when God and all mankind permit you to eat and to drink, to
enjoy good things, not merely what is necessary for actual
subsistence, but in a measure calculated to afford gratification and
pleasure, and you are yet not satisfied with that privilege--when such
is the case, your sordid and gluttonous tendencies are worthy one born
solely to consume beer and wine. But such are the excesses now to be
seen in the courts of princes--the banqueting and the drinking--that
one would think they meant to devour the resources of the country in a
single hour. Lords, princes, noblemen--the entire country, in
fact--are ruined, reduced to beggary, for the particular reason that
God's gifts are so inhumanly wasted and destroyed.
15. As I said before, the evil of drunkenness has, alas, gained such
ascendency as to be past restraint unless the Word of God may exert
some controlling influence among the few, the individuals who are
still human and who would be Christians. The masses will remain as
they are, particularly as the civil government makes no effort to
restrain the evil. It is my opinion that if God does not sometime
check the vice by a special judgment--and until he does it will never
be punished and restrained--even women and children will become
inebriate, and when the last day arrives no Christian will be found
but all souls will descend drunken into the abyss of hell.
16. Let all who desire to be Christians know that it is incumbent upon
them to manifest the virtue of temperance; that drunken sots have no
place among Christians, and cannot be saved until they amend their
ways, until they reform from their evil habits. Concerning them Paul
says plainly (Gal 5, 19-21): "Now the works of the flesh are manifest,
which are these: fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry,
sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions,
parties, envyings, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of which I
forewarn you, even as I did forewarn you, that they who practice such
things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."
Here you see that he who lies day and night in drunkenness has no more
inheritance in the kingdom of God than the whoremonger, adulterer, and
such like. Know then, just as idolatry, adultery and so on, are sins
excluding you from heaven, so too, drunkenness is a sin which bars you
from the blessings of baptism, and from remission of sins, faith in
Christ and your personal salvation. Hence, if you would be a Christian
and saved, you must be careful to lead a sober and temperate life. But
if you disregard this admonition and yet hope to be saved--well, then
continue to be an infidel and a brute so long as God permits.
17. Were you a Christian, even if you could permit yourself to be
unmoved by the physical injury wherein, by drunkenness, you plunge
yourself, not only wasting your money and property, but injuring your
health and shortening your life; and if you could permit yourself to
be unmoved by the stigma justly recognized by men and angels as
attaching to you, a filthy sot--even then you ought to be moved by
God's command, by the peril of incurring eternal damnation--of losing
God's grace and eternal salvation--to refrain from such unchristian
conduct. O God, how shameless and ungrateful we are, we so highly
blessed of God in having his Word and in being liberated from the
tyranny of the Pope, who desired our sweat and blood and tortured our
consciences with his laws--how ungrateful we are in the face of these
things not to amend our lives in some measure in honor to the Gospel,
and in praise and gratitude to God!
18. Where peradventure there are still pious parents or godfearing
Christian rulers, they ought, for the sake of lessening the evil of
intemperance, to restrain their children and domestics with serious
chastisements. Pastors and preachers are under obligation to admonish
the people frequently and faithfully, holding up to them God's
displeasure and wrath and the injuries to soul, body and property
resultant from this evil, to the intent that at least some might be
moved and profited. And they who wantonly and openly persist in the
vice, being not disposed to amend their conduct but at the same time
boast of the Gospel, should not be allowed to participate in the
sacrament of the Lord's Supper nor to act as sponsors at baptism.
Preachers and pastors should hold such as openly antichristian, and
should make a distinction against them the same as with manifest
adulterers, extortioners and idolaters. Such is Paul's command (1 Cor
5, 11): "I wrote unto you not to keep company, if any man that is
named a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a
reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one no, not to
eat."