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Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith the LORD. But ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink; and commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not. Behold, I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves.
Colonel Everard invited the good man to take some refreshment more genial than the pure element, but he declined: "I am in some sort a champion" he said; "and though I have been foiled in the late controversy with the Enemy, still I have my trumpet to give the alarm, and my sharp sword to smite withal; therefore, like the Nazarites of old, I will eat nothing that cometh of the vine, neither drink wine nor strong drink, until these my days of combat shall have passed away."
Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire: Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
But the critics inform us that there was no law concerning these offerings until several hundred years after Amos ceased to prophesy! Again, enumerating the sins of the people, Amos charges them with giving the Nazarites wine to drink. "Ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink, and commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not." Hosea adds his testimony to that of Amos and Ezekiel.
Antiq. 1. xix. c. 6. For which reason he also ordered a good number of Nazarites to be shaved." We here find that it was an act of piety amongst the Jews to defray for those who were under the Nazaritic vow the expenses which attended its completion; and that the phrase was, "that they might be saved."
But the Nazarites did not take upon themselves their vows with the opinions which, we have hitherto said we censure in the vows of the monks.
There is a vast amount of wisdom and goodness in the laws of Moses. I say nothing of the laws that are merely ceremonial: but there are lessons of great importance mixed up even with them at times. Take those about the Nazarites. Most of them are beautiful, excellent; and well would it be if people even in our days would accept them as rules for their own conduct.
It was a protest against the vice of drunkenness that was increasing in the land, as, relieved from war's alarms and waxing fat upon their fertile fields, the people gave themselves to pleasure. The first Prohibition Society, of which we have record, was this Order of the Nazarites. This Order appears also to have had a still deeper moral aim, little noticed of old.
With peace came wealth, with wealth came luxury, with luxury new social vices, fed from the court which grew around the monarchy. But that the heart of the people continued sound amid these organic changes we may see from several hints preserved by tradition. The institution, or revival, of the Order of the Nazarites was a religio-moral movement.
Anyhow, the ancients were acquainted with various colored wines, and it is satisfactory to know the precise hue intended by the gentleman who wrote the epistle of Lentulus. Sir Edwin represents Jesus as a Nazarite. Now, the Nazarites eschewed scissors and razors, but Sir Edwin says they parted their hair in the middle, which is another tip from the "sovereign voice."
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