Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith Part 18

But the objector falls back on the morals of Christendom, the civilization of the nineteenth century, and judges the laws of Moses by that standard. Very well. This is simply to say that our ideas have been raised to the standard of Christianity; and then the objection is that the laws of Moses are not so spiritual and elevated as the precepts of Christ. Our Lord himself a.s.serts the same thing. He says Moses tolerated divorce because of the hardness of the people's hearts; but from the beginning it was not so. And Paul (Hebrews viii. 6, 7) alleges the imperfection of Moses' law as a good reason for the introduction of a better covenant. The Bible itself then recognizes an advance from good to better, the path of the just shining more and more unto the perfect day.

But then it is asked, Is G.o.d the Author of an imperfect law? Could G.o.d give a defective code of morals? The question entirely misses the design of G.o.d's revelation as a process of educating his children. Suppose we ask, Could G.o.d speak Hebrew--a language so defective in philosophical terms? G.o.d must condescend to the mental, and even, in some degree, to the moral level of mankind if he is to reach us at all. All education must begin low, and rise from step to step. The A, B, C of morals must be first learned. The whole a.n.a.logy of providence shows this to be G.o.d's method of procedure. The kingdom of G.o.d is like the growing seed; first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. Gradual, and even slow, progress is the law of nature.

Our modern civilization, which is so proudly invoked, is very far indeed from any such perfection as might enable us to look down upon Moses'

legislation with contempt. We have only to name our standing armies and conscriptions; our national promises to pay debts, which no one ever expects to pay; our laws regarding drunkenness, and our revenues derived from the licenses for the sale of liquors; the utter failure of our attempts to put down betting, gambling, and stock and gold speculations, prost.i.tution, bribery, frauds, and plundering of the public funds; to convince ourselves that there are many things law can not do, even in this nineteenth century of civilization.

Our little progress, such as it is, has not been made all at once, or by one great advance. G.o.d gives mankind blessings by degrees. He gave the mariner's compa.s.s to the fourteenth century, the printing press and America to the fifteenth, the Bible in the vulgar tongue to the sixteenth, parliamentary government to the seventeenth, the steam engine to the eighteenth, railroads and the telegraph to the nineteenth.

One might as well cavil at his providence for not giving the Hebrews sewing machines, Hoe's printing presses, and daily newspapers, when they entered into Canaan, as for delaying to give them the elements of Christian civil law, and social life, before they were able to value and to use them.

As it was, Moses' law was so far in advance of their own ideas of propriety, and so far in advance of those of all the people around them, that they were continually falling back from it, and rebelling against it, and subjecting themselves to the discipline which G.o.d had threatened for disobedience. Thus they were kept ever looking upward to a higher model. Their transgressions must be confessed as sins, and atoned for by b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifices, declaring the transgressor worthy of death. Their consciences were educated to the idea of holiness, an idea utterly wanting among the heathen; and the law became a powerful motive power, urging them to higher and holier lives, and preparing them to receive the higher and holier example and precepts of Christ.

The imperfection, then, of the law of Moses, so far from being an evidence of the human origin of the Bible, is a mark of the infinite wisdom of the great Lawgiver in adapting his legislation to the condition of his people; and while tolerating for the time then present an imperfect state of society, just as at this time he tolerates a Christendom far below the gospel standard, yet implanting in the minds of his people principles of righteousness and love which were certain eventually to raise them to the high level of the kingdom of G.o.d. This, then, is simply an instance of the general law of divine development.

4. Again, however, it is contended, "that the morality of the Old Testament was narrow and bigoted; requiring, indeed, the observance of charity to the covenant people, but allowing Israel to hate all others as enemies, and as well expressed in the text, _Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy._"[164]

But let it be noticed, that this is no text of Scripture, nor does our Lord so quote it. He does not say it is so written, but, _ye have heard it said by them of old time_. The first part is G.o.d's truth; the second is the devil's addition to it, which Christ clears away and denounces.

It were easy to quote mult.i.tudes of pa.s.sages from the Old Testament, commanding Israel to show kindness to the stranger, and a whole host of promises, that in them all the families of the earth should be blessed; any one of which would sufficiently refute the foolish notion, that the morality of the Old Testament was geographical, and its charity merely national. But the simple fact, that the most sublime sanction of world-wide benevolence which ever fell even from the lips of Christ himself, was uttered by him as the sum and substance of the teachings of the Old Testament, conclusively confutes this dogma. The Golden Rule was no new discovery, unless its Author was mistaken, for he says: "_Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them_: FOR THIS IS THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS."[165] He declares the very basis and foundation of the whole Old Testament religion to be those eternal principles of G.o.dliness and charity, which he quotes in the very words of the law: "_Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy G.o.d with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets._"[166] The law and the prophets, then, taught genuine world-wide benevolence, Christ being witness; and the moral law of the Old Testament is the moral law of the New Testament, if we may believe the Lawgiver.

5. Still, it is alleged, "it can not be denied that the writers of the Old Testament breathed a spirit of vindictiveness, and imprecated curses on their enemies, utterly at variance with the precepts of the gospel, which command us to bless and curse not; and even in their solemn devotions uttered sentiments unfit for the mouth of any Christian; nor that their views of the character of G.o.d were stern and gloomy, and that they represented the Hebrew Jehovah as an unforgiving and vengeful being, utterly different from the kind and loving Father whom Christ delighted to reveal."

This, if the truth were told, is the grand objection to the Old Testament. The holy and righteous sin-hating G.o.d, presented in its history, is the object of dislike. The G.o.d who drowned the old world, destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah by fire from heaven, commanded the extermination of the lewd and b.l.o.o.d.y Canaanites, thundered his curses against sinners of every land and every age, saying, "_Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them_," requiring all the people to say _Amen_,[167] is not the G.o.d whom Universalists can find in their hearts to adore. A mild, easy, good-natured being, who would allow men to live and die in sin without any punishment, would suit them better. They try to think that he is altogether such an one as themselves, and an approver of their sin.

But it is worth while to inquire whether the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ be in this respect anything different from the Hebrew Jehovah, or whether the gospel has in the least degree lessened his displeasure against iniquity. Paul thought not that he was a different person, when he said:

"_We know him who hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord._"[168] Jesus thought not that he was more lenient to sinners when he cried, "_Woe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida! * * * Thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to h.e.l.l * * * It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee._"[169] It is not in the Old Testament, but in the New, that we are told that Jesus himself shall come "_In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not G.o.d, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power._"[170] It is not an old, bigoted Hebrew prophet giving a vision of the Hebrew Jehovah, but the beloved disciple who leaned on Jesus' breast, picturing the Savior himself, who says: "_He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood; and his name is called the Word of G.o.d. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; and he treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty G.o.d._"[171]

Let no man imagine that the New Testament offers impunity to the wicked, or that the Old Testament denies mercy to the repenting sinner, or that Christ exhibited any other G.o.d than the G.o.d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob--the same Hebrew Jehovah who _commands the wicked to forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and to return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our G.o.d, for he will abundantly pardon_.[172] It is exceedingly strange that those who dwell upon the paternal character of G.o.d, as a distinctive feature of Christ's personal teaching, should have forgotten that the hymns of the Old Testament church, a thousand years before his coming, were full of this endearing relation; that it was by the first Hebrew prophet that the Hebrew Jehovah declared, "_Israel is my son, even my first-born; and I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me_;"[173] and that by the last of them he urges Israel to obedience by this tender appeal: "_If I be a father, where is mine honor?_"[174] It was not Christ, but David--one of those gloomy, stern, Hebrew prophets--who penned that n.o.ble hymn to our Father in heaven, which Christ ill.u.s.trated in his Sermon on the Mount:

"The Lord is merciful and gracious, Slow to anger and plenteous in mercy.

He will not always chide, Neither will he keep his anger forever.

He hath not dealt with us after our sins, Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities; For as the heaven is high above the earth, So great is his mercy to them that fear him; As far as the East is from the West, So far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

Like as a father pitieth his children, So the Lord pitieth them that fear him."--Psalm ciii.

It is utter ignorance of the Old Testament which prompts any one to imagine that it presents any other character of G.o.d than "_The Lord, the Lord G.o.d, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty._"[175] This is the name which G.o.d proclaimed to Moses, and this is the character which he proclaimed in Christ, when he cried on the cross: "_My G.o.d, my G.o.d, why hast thou forsaken me? But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel._"[176] Justice and mercy are united in Christ dying for the unG.o.dly.

It is untrue to say that the prophets of the Old Testament were actuated by a spirit of malice, or of revenge for personal injuries as such, in praying for, or prophesying destruction on the inveterate enemies of G.o.d and his cause.[177] Of all Scripture characters, David has been most defamed for vindictiveness; but surely never was man more free from any such spirit, than the persecuted fugitive, who, with his enemy in his hand in the cave, and his confidential advisers urging him to take his life, cut off his skirt instead of his head; and on another occasion prevented the stroke which would have smitten the sleeping Saul to the earth, and sent back even the spear and the cruse of water, the trophies of his generosity. When cursed himself, and defamed as a vengeful shedder of blood by the Benjamite, he could restrain the fury of his followers, protect the life of the ruffianly traitor, and thus appeal to G.o.d as the witness of his innocence:

"O Lord, my G.o.d! if I have done this, If there be iniquity in my hands, If I have rewarded evil to him that was at peace with me, Yea I have delivered him that without cause was mine enemy."[178]

It is true that he does bitterly curse several living persons; of whom it is observable that some had done him no sort of personal injury; as Doeg the Edomite--the Nana Sahib of his day--who antic.i.p.ated the scenes of Cawnpore, in the streets of n.o.b, by mercilessly butchering unoffending men, helpless women, and innocent babes. But surely no friend of humanity can imagine that it is improper that the chief magistrate of Israel, anointed for the very purpose of being a terror to evil doers, should express his righteous indignation against such atrocities; nor confound such public execration with the petty gnawings of private revenge. Still less can the fearer of G.o.d doubt the propriety of his expressing by the mouth of his prophet, that displeasure he signally displayed by his providence, scathing and blasting the accursed wretch into a terror to all b.l.o.o.d.y and deceitful men who shall read their own warning in his doom.

"G.o.d shall likewise destroy thee forever, He shall take thee away and pluck thee from thy dwelling, And root thee out of the land of the living."[179]

We have the most solemn a.s.surance, that every one of the historical incidents of Scripture is recorded for our instruction, and that every prophecy gives a lesson to all ages. "_Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come._"[180] The imprecations of the Bible against individual sinners are the gibbets on which these malefactors are hung up for warning to all men to flee the crimes that brought them to that fate.

It is put beyond the possibility of doubt, by the combined testimony of the Lord and his apostles, that by far the greater number of the curses which David uttered, he spoke in the person of Christ himself, of whom he was a type; and with direct reference to the crimes and punishment of his enemies. Thus the Sixty-ninth Psalm, and the One hundred and ninth, pre-eminently the cursing Psalms, are most explicitly and repeatedly a.s.serted by Christ, by Peter, and by John, to belong to Christ, and to express his very words: "_This scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus. * * * For it is written in the book of Psalms, Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein. And, His bishopric let another take._"[181] If any one feels reluctant to imagine that such cursings should fall from the lips of the merciful Savior, let him remember that the most awful curse which shall ever fall on the ears of terrified men shall be p.r.o.nounced by Jesus himself, "_Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels._"[182] The solemn facts of the Bible will not accommodate themselves to our likes and dislikes. Christ loves righteousness and hates iniquity; in the Bible he takes leave to say so, and he expects his people to share his feelings, and to be willing to express them on fit occasions.

Personal revenge, and curses for mere personal injuries, are forbidden in the New Testament as well as in the Old. But it was an apostle of Jesus Christ who cried, "_If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. Though we or an angel from heaven bring any other gospel unto you, let him be accursed._"[183] Nor until we can in some measure feel this holy indignation against sin, and this burning desire to see all tyranny, superst.i.tion, bribery, licentiousness, and profanity, crushed and banished from the earth, can we pray in truth "_Thy kingdom come._" Still less can we be prepared for the rejoicings of heaven over the conquest of the enemies of G.o.d and man: "_Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets, for G.o.d hath avenged you on her._"

Reader, you hope to go to heaven; but it may be a different place from what you dream of. Did you ever study the employment of the saints there? Are you washed from your sins? Is your mind purified from your carnal notions? Unless a man be born again he can not see the kingdom of G.o.d. Are your likes and dislikes, your sentiments and sympathies, your understanding and your will, all brought into subjection to Christ? Can you heartily love and adore a sin-hating, sin-avenging G.o.d? Or do you shrink back in terror or dislike from G.o.d's denunciations of wrath against the wicked? Would your benevolence lead you to deal alike with the righteous and the wicked; and to abhor the thought of destroying them that destroy the earth? Then how will you join in the hallelujahs of heaven; for G.o.d's judgments are the themes of thanksgiving and praise from saints and angels there, and this is their song:

"_Hallelujah, salvation, and glory, and honor, and power, unto the Lord, our G.o.d, for true and righteous are his judgments; for he hath judged the great wh.o.r.e, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hands. And again they said, Hallelujah! And her smoke rose up for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped G.o.d that sat on the throne, saying, Amen! Hallelujah! And a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our G.o.d, all ye his servants; and ye that fear him, both small and great. And I heard as it were the voice of a great mult.i.tude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Hallelujah!_ FOR THE LORD G.o.d OMNIPOTENT REIGNETH."[184]

And now, if this be the character of G.o.d, if he be indeed one who hates iniquity, and punishes impenitent sinners, we need not wonder that those who spake his word should utter imprecations, either in the Old Testament or in the New; but rather bless the mercy which warns before justice strikes, which hangs the red lantern over the abyss, and which seeks by the terrors of the Lord to persuade men from perdition. The curses of the Bible are denounced against the enemies of G.o.d, with the design of showing sinners their danger, and leading them to repentance.

The conclusion, then, of our investigation is, that the Old Testament is the Word of G.o.d no less than the New; that it is in no respect contrary to it; that all its parts--the law and the prophets, and the Psalms--are of divine authority; that all its contents were written by divine direction, whether prophecy or history, ceremony or morality, promise or threatening, curses or blessings. It is of the Old Testament princ.i.p.ally that the Holy Ghost declares: "_All Scripture is given by inspiration of G.o.d, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of G.o.d may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works._"[185]

FOOTNOTES:

[120] Parker's Absolute Religion, p. 205.

[121] Parker's Discourses on Religion, p. 161.

[122] Macknight's Doctrine of Inspiration, p. 161, and seq.

[123] Macknight's Doctrine of Inspiration, p. 192, etc.

[124] Essays and Reviews, page 121.

[125] John, chap. x. 25, 38.

[126] Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1864, p. 254. Annual Cyclopaedia, 1863, p. 377.

[127] Mastodon Giganteus, Boston, 1855, p. 199.

[128] For a fuller discussion of the subject, and references to the authorities, which our s.p.a.ce here forbids, I must refer the curious reader to the _Princeton Review_, Vol. XL. No. 4, where I have noticed every fact bearing on the subject up to that date; merely adding that no new fact, establishing man's remote antiquity, has been established up to this date, September 21, 1874.

[129] Familiar Lectures, page 456.

[130] Authenticity of the Pentateuch, II. 150.

[131] Creation's Testimony to its G.o.d. London, 1867, page 338.

[132] See this subject more fully discussed in chapter XII., Telescopic Views of Scripture.

[133] Osburn's Monumental History.

[134] Hebrew Monarchy, 160.

[135] Prof. Rawlinson's Modern Skepticism, 285.

[136] Ancient Monarchies I. 65.

[137] W. R. Cooper, Secretary Biblical Archaeological Society, in _Faith and Free Thought_, page 257.

[138] Rawlinson's Ill.u.s.trations of Scripture.