This statement may be, to some readers, rather startling; but there can be no question of its truth. Some of our most popular Christian writers have avowed it, though in rather an indirect way. Hear what the Rev. John Pye Smith, the leading Christian clergyman of England, and one of the ablest and most popular in all Christendom, says with respect to Bible interpretations: "I would advise the clergy everywhere to interpret the Bible according to the spirit of the age." Most wonderful advice truly, and a dead shot at the Bible. Let it be understood, then, that, according to this Christian divine, Bible readers hereafter are to pay no attention to the plain and obvious meaning of the Bible language, or to the writer's intended meaning (which is the only true meaning), but force a meaning into the text which you know will be acceptable "to the spirit of the age;" that is, to men of reason and of scientific attainments. The Bible, then, is to be venerated henceforth, not for what it teaches, but for what it ought to teach, or what the fanciful reader would have it teach. Verily, verily, we have fallen upon strange times when "God's word," like a nose of wax, is to be molded into any shape to suit "the spirit of the times;" but don't let it be supposed that the Rev. John Pye Smith is the only Christian professor who makes God's infallible revelation succumb to the good sense and intelligence of the age,—"the spirit of the times." There is not an orthodox clergyman, not a Christian church, and scarcely a Christian professor, who does not make the Bible a mere tool in that way. None of them, in all cases, accept the literal meaning of the Bible. None of them take the dictionary for a guide in all cases to determine the meaning of the words of the text. As we have said, there is not an orthodox church or clergyman who does not frequently abandon the dictionary, and travel outside of it, and coin a new meaning of his own for many of the words of the Bible, and ingraft into those words a meaning they never possessed before. They thus assume a license that would not be tolerated with respect to any other book; and yet, notwithstanding these countless alterations and changes in "God's unchangeable word,"—changes in the language, changes in the meaning of its words, changes by translation, changes in the import of its doctrine, and changes in the teaching of its precepts; yet millions cling to it as "God's perfect, unalterable revelation," his "pure and unadulterated word." They seem to take the same view of it the old lady did of the carving-knife, which, although it had been mended sixteen times, had had seven new blades and nine new handles, yet it was the same old keepsake which her father had given her forty years before. The Bible, in like manner, has been altered and amended by fifty translations and a hundred and fifty thousand alterations, according to the learned Dr. Robinson of England, and is still believed by millions to be the same old book,—just as God gave it to man. What superstitious infatuation! It is an instructive fact, which we will note here, that all this labor of amending and enlightening the Bible is the work of the very best minds in the churches,—the growing, thinking, intellectual minds in those institutions; minds that are in a state of unrest, that are hungering and thirsting for something better; minds which are unconsciously struggling to get free from the trammels of priestcraft and superstition, and the religious creeds in which they were educated, and are unconsciously aspiring for something better, something higher, holier, and purer, but can not give up the idolized Book which has been so long enwrapped among their heart-strings that it has seemingly become a part and parcel of their souls. Hence, rather than abandon it and leave it behind them, they prefer to remodel and reconstruct it, and bring it up to their own moral standard, and thus make a better and more sensible thing of it than God himself did in the first place; that is, assuming that he had any thing to do with it. And they generally put newer and better ideas into the Book, and better morals, than they ever got out of it; and finally, in many cases, outgrow the current theology, and become more enlightened, more intelligent, and more useful members of society, than they were in any period of their lives.
CHAPTER LIX.—CHARACTER OF THE CHRISTIAN'S GOD.
The object in selecting and presenting the list of texts quoted in this chapter is to show that Bible writers entertained a very low and dishonorable conception of the "all-loving Father," and that, on this account, the reading of these caricatures of Infinite Wisdom must have a demoralizing effect upon those who habitually read them, and accept them as truth. Even if they were all accepted as metaphors, or mere figures of speech, that would not prevent or destroy their injurious effect upon the mind; for descriptions by metaphor or pictures have the same effect upon the mind as literal descriptions or representations. And what must be the effect upon the mind of the ignorant heathen who read the Book with no suspicion of its being aught but reality, as much of it was unquestionably designed to be?
1. "There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it" (2 Sam. xxil. 9). Suggestion of a volcano.
2. "He had horns coming out of his hand" (Hab. ill. 4).
3. "Out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword" (Rev. 1.16). Rather a frightful monster to look at.
4. "He shall mightily roar from his habitation" (Jer. xxv. 30). Wonder if it frightened the saints in glory.
6. "He shall give a shout, as they that tread the grapes" (Jer. xxv. 30).