But they said, We will drink no wine: for Jonadab the son of Rechab our father commanded us, saying, Ye shall drink no wine, [neither ye], nor your sons for ever:
Ver. 6. We will not drink wine.] This they were resolved on, not because they were persuaded, as Mohammed's followers are, that in every grape there dwelt a devil, but because Jonadab, the son of Rechab, their progenitor, 2Ki 10:15 had two or three hundred years before charged them to forbear; not thereby to establish any new arbitrary service, or any rule of greater perfection of life a (as the Papists misallege it in favour of monkery and other will worships and superstitious observances), but only as a civil ordinance about things external, the foundation whereof is laid in the Word, which commandeth modesty, humility, sobriety, heavenly mindedness, &c.
a Haec leges vitae potius eram honestatis quam salutis animae.