Postmode

It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.
- C.S. Lewis

A book, if necessary, should be a hammer or a hand grenade, which you detonate under a stagnant way of looking at the world.
- Wole Soyinka

Love toward sick members should have a special place in the Christian congregation. Christ comes near to us in the sick. The pastor who neglects the visitation of the sick must ask whether or not he can exercise his office on the whole.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
- James 5:14-15

While not a smoker himself, Machen recounted his “cloudy” days as a student at Princeton Theological Seminary, as recorded in Ned Stonehouse’s biography: “The fellows are in my room now on the last Sunday night, smoking the cigars and eating the oranges which it has been the greatest delight… to provide…. My idea of delight is a Princeton room full of fellows smoking. When I think what a wonderful aid tobacco is to friendship and Christian patience I have sometimes regretted that I never began to smoke.” His comments are reminiscent of C.S. Lewis’: “My happiest hours are often spent with three or four old friends in old clothes tramping together and putting up in small pubs - or else sitting up till the small hours in someone’s college rooms, talking nonsense, poetry, theology, metaphysics over beer, tea, and pipes. There is no sound I like better than adult male laughter.”
- Jim West, Drinking With Calvin And Luther! A History of Alcohol In The Church

Whene’er I take my pipe and stuff it
And smoke to pass the time away,
My thoughts as I sit and puff it,
Dwell on a picture sad and grey.
It teaches me that very like
Am I myself unto my pipe.

Like me, this pipe so fragrant burning
Is made of naught but earth and clay;
To earth I too shall be returning,
It falls and, ere I’d think to say,
It breaks in two before my eyes,
In store for me a like fate lies.

No stain the pipe’s hue yet doth darken;
It remains white. Thus do I know
That when to death’s call I must hearken
My body, too, all pale wilt grow.
To black beneath the sod ’twill turn,
Likewise, the pipe, if oft it burn.
Or when the pipe is fairly glowing,
Behold then instantaneously,
The smoke off into thin air going,
Till naught but ash is left to see.
Man’s frame likewise will burn
And unto dust his body turn.

How oft it happens when one’s smoking:
The stopper’s missing from its shelf,
And one goes with one’s finger poking
Into the bowl and burns oneself.
If in the pipe such pain doth dwell,
How hot must be the pains of Hell.

Thus o’er my pipe, in contemplation
Of such things, I can constantly
Indulge in fruitful meditation,
And so, puffing contentedly,
On land, on sea, at home, abroad,
I smoke my pipe and worship God.
- Johann Sebastian Bach [Found in Drinking With Calvin And Luther! A History of Alcohol In The Church]

Eighteenth century taverns generally had one main area, the taproom, for eating and drinking. They usually had signs with prices and clever sayings which often censured credit. Some samples: “[M]y liquor’s good, my measure just, but honest sirs I will not trust.” Or, “I’ve trusted many to my sorrow. Pay today, I’ll trust tomorrow.”
- Jim West on New England ordinaries in Drinking With Calvin And Luther! A History of Alcohol In The Church]

Drink is in itself a good creature of God, and to be received with thankfulness, but the abuse of drink is from Satan; the wine is from God, but the Drunkard is from the Devil.
- Increase Mather [Found in Drinking With Calvin And Luther! A History of Alcohol In The Church]

A nonconformist contemporary of Perkins was John Dod, whose playfulness included even parodying himself. Dod was particularly noted for his creative sermon divisions. While attending Cambridge University, Dod preached against what he called the “malt worms” of the university. The story is (as told tongue-in-cheek by Dod himself) that while he was walking home in the country, that he was accosted by some students from a tavern who wanted to amuse themselves at Dod’s expense. They blocked his path and demanded a sermon on the text of their choosing - the text was MALT. Dod mounted the stump of a nearby tree trunk and began his sermon:

Beloved, let me crave your reverend attention; I am a little man, come at a short warning, to preach a short sermon, from a short subject to a thin congregation, in an unworthy pulpit. Beloved, my text is MALT. Now, there is no teaching without a division. I cannot divide my text into sentences, because there are none; not into words, it being but one; not into syllables, it being but a monosyllable. Therefore I must divide it into letters, which I find in my text to be four: M, A, L, T.

M, my beloved is moral, A, allegorical, L, literal, and T, theological. First, the moral teaches such as you drunkards good manners; wherefore, M, my master, A, all you, L, listen, T, to my text. Secondly, the allegorical is when one thing is spoken of and another meant; the thing spoken of is malt, the thing meant is the oil of malt, properly called strong beer; gentlemen, make M, your meat, A, your apparel, L, your liberty, and T, your treasure. Thirdly, the literal sense hath ever been found suitable to the theme, confirmed by beggarly experience: M, much, A, ale, L, little, T, thought. Fourthly, the theological is according to the effects that it worketh, which are of two kinds: the first in this world, the second in the world to come. The effects that it worketh in this life are M, murder, A, adultery, L, looseness of life, and T, treason. In the world to come the effects of it are M, misery, A, anguish, L, lamentation, T, torment.

And the application of my text is this: M, my masters, A, all of you, L, look for, T, torment.

- Jim West on John Dod, from Drinking With Calvin And Luther! A History of Alcohol In The Church

For look! I raise my arm to drink
A voluntary act you think
(Nay, Sir, you’re grinning).
Your’e wrong: this stein of beer I’ve drained
To emptiness was preordained
Since Time’s beginning.
- Robert Service [yet another gem found in Drinking With Calvin and Luther! A History of Alcohol In The Church]

Do not suppose that abuses are eliminated by destroying the object which is abused.  Men can go wrong with wine and women.  Shall we then prohibit and abolish women?
- Martin Luther [Found in Drinking With Calvin and Luther! A History of Alcohol In The Church]