He said: "Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know" (Gen. xviii., 20, 21). Much faith is necessary to believe that god knew and that he did not know all at once, but "he that believeth not shall be damned."
It is blasphemy to deny that the same god who did not punish Lot and his daughters for incest, punished Lot's poor wife because she committed the terrible crime of looking back towards her burning home. She was turned into a "pillar of salt" (Gen. xix., 26), and Jesus bids us remember her (Luke xvii, 32), but does not say why we should do so. If god had forgotten her and had turned the two daughters into salt, the family history would have been less scandalous than it is.
It is blasphemy to deny that god "rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven" (Gen. xix., 24). Heaven must be a pleasant place if it contains stores of brimstone and fire which can be rained down in this fashion. Action of this kind is supposed to be wicked when done by man, but a divine O'Donovan Rossa is apparently held up for our admiration. I have sometimes wondered whether this brimstone may not possibly have come from the lake of brimstone and fire connected with the bottomless pit (Rev. xx., 10); if so, it is very probable that as the earth turned round and Sodom and Gomorrah came opposite the bottomless pit, so that it was above those "towns," god lifted the lid and let out some of the contents. This view should commend itself to the religious, as it cannot be pleasant for them to look forward to spending eternity in the close neighborhood of a celestial manufactory of dynamite.
It is blasphemy to deny that "just Lot" (2 Pet. ii., 7) offered his two virgin daughters to satiate the lust of the crowd surrounding his house: "let me, I pray you," said this good father, "bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes." This generous offer, which would be vile in any one but a saint, throws much light on his later relations with these young women. The frightful crime related in Gen. xix., 30-36, seems to have been much approved of by god; for we learn in Deut. ii., 9 and 19, that the Moabites and Ammonites were not to be molested, for their lands were given "unto the children of Lot for a possession," and the reference Bible refers us back on this to the beautiful story in Genesis. Little English girls are given this story to read, and it would be blasphemous to teach them that Lot and his daughters were criminals of the filthiest type. The holy book of god says that Lot was a "just" man, and there is not a word of disapproval of his vice. If it were not that all good little girls must read the Bible, it would be far better that they should not know that such crimes are committed at all. Children's thoughts should never be turned towards sexual matters in any fashion, and they do not so turn of themselves, and it would be one of the worst mischiefs done by the Bible-if it were not the book of god-that it destroys this natural healthy indifference in children's minds. It is not wonderful that such frightful tales of family immorality are but too often told at the assizes, or that poor ignorant people, believing with blind faith in the Bible, repeat the crime of Lot and his daughters, and are startled when our human laws punish peremptorily the crime which in the Bible is blessed of god.
It is blasphemy to deny that god plagued the innocent household of Abimelech, the king of Gerar, because Abimelech had been deceived by the lie of Abraham, god's friend. From the story as related in Genesis xx. we learn that Abimelech took Sarah-then over ninety years of age- believing her to be Abraham's sister; next, that finding out the trick played on him, he gave her back to her base husband, rebuking him in "that thou hast brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin next, that Sarah was Abraham's half-sister, although she was also his wife, and that such marriage unions between children of the same father by different mothers are pleasing to god; next, that Abraham accepted "sheep and oxen and men-servants and women-servants" from Abimelech with his restored wife, as well as "a thousand pieces of silver," ironically bestowed on him as her "brother;" and, finally, we learn that it is blasphemy to deny that just the same sequence of events happened twice over to Abraham, and also happened to Isaac his son (Gen. xx vi., 7-11), who inherited the family untruthfulness and the family cowardice with the family property.
It is blasphemy for a man to say "when he is tempted, I am tempted of god; for god cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man" (James i., 13). Yet it is blasphemy to deny that "after these things god did tempt Abraham (Gen. xxii., 1). If anybody is infidel enough to ask how a god that tempts no one could have tempted Abraham, the best answer is: "He that believeth not shall be damned." Perhaps Abraham was no one, and in that case both statements would be true.
Everyone knows the beautiful story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac. How this noble father led his child to the slaughter; how Isaac meekly submitted; how the farce went on till the lad was bound and laid on the altar, and how god then stopped the murder, and blessed the intending murderer for his willingness to commit the crime. If anyone now tries to emulate Abraham's faith, he is treated as a dangerous lunatic; but it is blasphemy to deny that that which would be murder now was virtue then.
It is blasphemy to deny that Isaac was born when his father and mother were too old for his birth to be natural (Gen. xvii., 17); in fact, Abraham was "as good as dead" and Sarah "was past age" (Heb. xi., 11, 12), and we are told that when "he was about an hundred years old" "his own body" was "now dead" (Rom. iv., 19). Although it is blasphemy to assert that he was not too old at 100 to become the father of one son, it is also blasphemy to assert that he was too old more than 37 years later to become the father of six sons (Gen. xxv., 2). We are bound to believe that Abraham was naturally capable of becoming a father when he was 86 years of age, and when he was over 137 years of age, but that it was only by a miracle that he was capable of becoming a father when he was 100 years of age. Truly there are in the Bible "some things hard to be understood" (2 Pet. iii., 16).
It is blasphemy to deny that before Esau and Jacob were born god chose one as his favorite, and declared: "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated" (Rom. ix., 13). If anyone should carpingly allege that it was wrong to hate poor unborn Esau before he had committed "any good or evil" (Rom. ix., 11), the right answer is that "god's ways are not as our ways," and that which would be wickedness in man is righteousness in god. God loved Jacob. Jacob would not give his starving brother food until he had bargained for his birthright in return (Gen. xxv., 29-34); but god loved Jacob. Jacob cheated his blind father, pretending to be his brother, and deceived the old man's sense of touch, the sense of vision having failed (Gen. xxvii., 11, 12, 15, 16, 22, 23); but god loved Jacob. Jacob was a hypocrite, and when he took a kid dressed to imitate venison to his father, pretended that he had found it quickly "because the Lord thy god brought it to me" (v. 20); but god loved Jacob. Jacob was a liar, declaring that he was his brother Esau (v. 19, 24); but god loved Jacob. Jacob was a coward, and ran away from his defrauded brother; but god loved Jacob. Jacob hated his wife (Gen. xxix., 31); yet god loved Jacob. Jacob swindled his hospitable uncle Laban out of his flocks and herds (Gen. xxx., 31-43); yet god loved Jacob. Jacob ran away from his uncle with his ill-gotten gains, like a thief in the night (Gen. xxxi, 20); yet god loved Jacob. Jacob was once more a coward, afraid of the brother he had wronged, and sent on some of his people to get killed that he might escape (Gen. xxxii., 7, 8); yet god loved Jacob. It is instructive to know the kind of men that god loves, and to know that god loves a bargaining, cheating, hypocritical, lying, swindling coward. As to poor Esau, on whom fell the awful hate of god before he was born, he seems to have been a brave, loving, generous-hearted man. The kindly words of the man god hated, as he refused his cringing brother's present: "I have enough, my brother; keep that thou hast unto thyself" (Gen. xxxiii., 9), contrast forcibly with the mean, despicable conduct of the man god loved. It is blasphemy to deny that god abetted pious Jacob's frauds, for we learn that "god hath taken away the cattle of your father, and given them to me" (Gen. xxxi., 9), and that in suggesting the method of fraud god reminded him of the share due to himself by the vow he had made (Gen. xxxi, 13), the said vow being that "of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth to thee" (Gen. xxviii., 22).
It is blasphemy to deny that the foul stories of Tamar and Onan, of Tamar and Judah, and of the births of Pharez and Zarah-the children of Judah and his daughter-in-law -with all the details of the several events (Gen. xxxviii.), are of divine authority. If any one but god had told the stories they would be indecent, and the teller would be liable to prosecution under Lord Campbell's act. Out of the filthiest literature the story told in verses 27-30 could not be paralleled, and I doubt if Holywell Street has anything fouler on its book-shelves. Yet little innocent girls are given the book containing these perfectly useless and indescribable nastinesses; and if decent people venture to criticise the book, avoiding the parts of it only fit for pious hands, they are liable to be sent to gaol, and the judge accuses them of undermining morality! The sooner the morality built on Judah, Tamar, and the stories of Onan and Pharez, is undermined the better for decent society.