8. The writers on evidences often attempted to prove points which were not true, and which, if they had been true, would have been no credit to the Bible or Christianity. Some of them spent more time in laboring to prove that Christianity taught doctrines which it did not teach, than in proving that the doctrines which it did teach were 'worthy of all acceptation.' Some left the impression that Christianity was a mass of vain, improbable, and incomprehensible doctrines, calculated neither to satisfy man's intellect nor his conscience, neither to renovate his heart, nor improve his life, nor increase his happiness. Such writers served the cause of infidelity rather than the cause of Christ.
9. Some, like Hartwell Horne, gave so many rules for interpreting the Bible, and required such a multitude of rare qualifications to fit a man for being a Bible student, that they left the impression on one's mind that the Book must be utterly unintelligible to people at large. And they directed the attention of their readers so much to matters of little or no moment, that they lost sight of the matters which the Bible was specially intended to teach and impress on men's minds and hearts.
10. Many dwelt so much on things doubtful, that they left the impression on the minds of their readers, that there was little or nothing but what was doubtful. They busied themselves so much in answering objections, that they left the impression that there was little or nothing but what was open to objections. They had so little to say about what was true, and good, and glorious beyond all question, that they left people in doubt whether there was any thing past question or controversy in Christianity or not.
11. And many treated the subject so coolly or carelessly, that they abated rather than increased the interest of their readers in religious matters.
12. And the great mass of writers followed one another so servilely,—they wrote so much by rote, and so little from experience or real knowledge, that all seemed cold and formal, uninteresting and unprofitable. It was a rare thing to come across a writer that touched the heart, or even satisfied the judgment.
13. And they often labored hard and long to prove points of little or no importance, while points of greatest moment were left untouched, or handled so unskillfully as to do harm rather than good.
14. And almost all had unauthorized and unscriptural theories of Scripture inspiration, which it was impossible for them to prove, and which they so manifestly failed to prove, that a critical reader could not but see their failure. They tried to justify expressions and actions which could not be justified, and to reconcile differences which did not admit of reconciliation.
15. Even the historical arguments of Paley and Grotius consisted of so many particulars, and carried one so far back into regions with which one was so imperfectly acquainted, and into states of society which it was so difficult for one to realize, that it was impossible they should have much power over the heart; and the little they had was soon lost, when their books were laid aside. Even when we remembered the facts, and could run them over in our minds, we could not feel the force of the argument based on them, or use it so as to make it felt by others.
The historical argument drawn from miracles never exerted much satisfying power on my mind for any length of time. I could remember that it had satisfied me once, but that was not to feel its satisfying power then. And you could not go back to your books continually, and pore over the arguments forever. So that long before I became a doubter, I felt that the historical argument could never be useful to people generally, either in producing faith where it was not, or in perpetuating it where it was. I was sure that if mankind at large were to be brought to receive and cherish Christianity, it must be by proofs of a simpler and more popular kind, which people could feel, and carry along with them in their hearts as well as in their heads. And now I see most clearly that I was right. Miracles had a use, and I may show what it was by and by; but it was not the use to which they have been so often and so vainly applied.
16. The writers on prophecy were as unsatisfactory as those on miracles. They often handled the prophecies unfairly if not deceitfully. They treated as absolute prophecies, prophecies which were expressly conditional. And they lost sight of the fact, so plainly stated in Jeremiah xviii, that all prophetic promises and threatenings are conditional. Then they took one bit of a prophecy and left another: kept out of sight predictions which had not been fulfilled, and dwelt exclusively on phrases which had been fulfilled.