SUMMARY (Bryn Skibo, edited Deborah Madsen):

“Address on Abstinence”: Speaking to fellow Bible-Christian Church members, Metcalf remembers their arrival in the US, 23 years previously, when “[o]ur purpose was nothing less than to introduce principles of religion and knowledge among a free people, which we believed to be essential to the happiness of all men here, and indispensable to their peace and everlasting salvation hereafter” (3-4). He describes the unique qualities of the Bible-Christian Church:

As a religious community we have adopted a mode of life, in regulating the appetites and fulfilling the physical and organic laws of the body, altogether different from the practices of other Christian professors. We have long discontinued the very fashionable habit, of feeding on the flesh of butchered animals, and have confined ourselves wholly to vegetable productions. We have long resisted the allurements of the intoxicating bow, and have been contented to satisfy our thirst from the limpid stream.The system of temperance which we thus religiously practise, furnishes us with strength and activity sufficient to support the most laborious occupations, secures one of the all important blessings of life, the possession of health, – and qualifies us for the enjoyment of a more perfect mode of being and intellectual delights, than ever falls to the participation of the ‘Wine-bibber or the glutton’ (5).

The operating principle of the church is that “‘It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine’” and Metcalf reiterates this principle in this speech:

I purpose on this occasion, … to present you with such a development of the doctrine of the Bible, in relation to abstinence from the flesh of animals as it is to be hoped, will go far to satisfy you of the correctness of a vegetable diet, and of its consistency with enlightened reason and harmony with the laws of our nature, and the plain testimony of the Word of God ... . To the evidence of the Sacred pages therefore on the proper food for sustaining life, in accordance with the will of God – on preserving health and enjoying ‘A sound mind in a sound body’ – and at the same time on progressively gaining more, and more of heavenly wisdom, our enquiries will this morning be particularly directed (6).

He cites the "vegetarian" passage of Scripture: Gen. 1.29: “Behold I have given to you, even every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of the earth, …” (6-7) and, like William Alcott, also makes reference to the “Golden Age” of antiquity when people were believed to have been vegetarians (7). Metcalf argues that it was not just Adam who was supposed to have been a vegetarian, but mankind ever after, since there was no physical change to mankind, which would indicate that they were not supposed to eat vegetables, nor any change to vegetables to make them less nutritious (8). Metcalf accuses meat-eating Christians of having placed in doubt God’s omniscience and to have changed His laws to suit their desires (9).
Metcalf investigates the post-Fall passage of Scripture: “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you” (10), pointing out:

1. Since we do not eat everything that “liveth,” this line must be incorrect;
2. Metcalf questions this line in the context of others, in which God demands penance in blood, life, and remorse if humans slay other animals: “He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man” (11);
3. In the words of the Prophet Jonah, God not only demanded that the human inhabitants of Ninneveh repent, but also the nonhuman animals (12).

He concludes, “In brief, Christian Friends, we think it must be no difficult matter to see that the superstructure erected in defence of gratifying an unnatural, inhuman, and carnivorous appetite is built on a ‘sandy foundation’ and cannot stand; – already, in fact, it is shaken to its very basis…” (14).

Metcalf investigates Scripture as it relates to “the Children of Israel,” and the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”:

“In a state of war, this precept, and indeed every similar institution of GOD, are entirely superceded by the murderous declarations of man. Theft is no longer stealing. Killing, in such case, is not murder. In national warfare it is declared to be just and honorable to plunder and to kill, … . What then is the influence which the commandment before us has had in staying man from murder? – … Who has the authority of presumption to limit this precept to killing men? … May we not reasonably believe that its application was benevolently intended to reach the animal creation?” (15, 16).

God provided manna, not flesh, but He could have provided flesh because God is omnipotent (17). The Promised Land is described as the land of milk and honey, filled with bread and fruits (18). God prescribed vegetables, bread, milk, and fruit, but eventually allowed meat-eating (though the people were eventually destroyed (18-19): “We repeat the observation then, … that whenever Jehovah prescribes or appoints a diet for his people, that diet is always vegetable, without any admixture of the flesh of animals” (19). He notes that the People of Israel kept herds for fleece and milk, not flesh (21) and comments that just because we drink the milk of an animal, does not give us the right to eat the flesh (21-22).

Metcalf argues that animal sacrifice is so abhorrent to human decency and feeling that the Israelites likely did not do it, and indeed, the Bible-Christian Church does not believe they did (23); God only permitted the sacrifices, Metcalf argues, because of their hardened hearts (24). He suggests that the sacrifices described in Solomon’s temple are so numerous as to be impossible; instead, he argues, animal names are given to many nonhuman inert objects, like money, their skins, pastries, and even human beings (25). So the “sacrifices” made in Solomon’s temple were pieces of money offered for the value of the animal to be “sacrificed” (25). And when John the Baptist ate locusts they were the “fruit” of the locust tree (27).

Ultimately, Metcalf argues that “there is reasonable ground for the argument, that the Scriptures, rightly interpreted, do not sanction the eating of either fish, or flesh, or fowl” (31). In a world filled with sin, gluttony, and defilement, Metcalf argues that it is to religion that people will look for example, thus his followers should:

Stand for the cause of Truth against all the efforts of those ‘who live to the flesh.’ Stand as the soldiers of your Redeemer, in the blessed armor of the Gospel, with the shield of faith, and the breastplate of righteousness, having for a helmet the hope of salvation, and girded with the sword of the spirit, which is the WORD OF GOD.” ... Our aim is not violently to snatch the fatal knife from the bloody hands of the butcher, nor ruthlessly to tear the feast of death from the teeth of the riotous eaters of flesh. – Our high object is to instruct; to correct general sentiment and to determine the principles of public habits so as to cherish universal humanity; believing that in proportion as the minds of the moral and intellectual among our fellow mortals are sufficiently awakened to the importance of the dietetics of the BIble, they will withdraw themselves from a system of cruel habits, which involves a portion of the animal creation in needless suffering and untimely death; and which has unquestionably a baneful effect upon the physical existence and the intellectual, the moral and religious powers of man (32-33).