2d. They strain, but vainly, to show the New Testament no improvement on the Old, and themselves in harmonious relations to both. On this subject we would confidently leave the arbitration to a mind—could such a one be found—sufficiently disciplined to examine the subject, and new both to the New Testament and this volume, as that of Rammohun Roy might have been, whether its views are not of the same strain that Jesus sought to correct and enlighten among the Jews, and whether the writers do not treat the teachings of the new dispensation most unfairly, in their desire to wrest them into the service of the old.
3d. Wherever there is a weak place in the argument, it is filled up by abuse of the opposite party. The words "absurd," "infidel," "blasphemous," "shallow philosophy," "sickly sentimentalism," and the like, are among the favorite missiles of these defenders of the truth. They are of a sort whose frequent use is generally supposed to argue the want of a shield of reason and a heart of faith.
And this brings us to a more close consideration of the spirit of this book, characterized by our contemporary as "diabolic." And we, also, cannot excuse ourselves from marking it as, in this respect, one of the worst books we have ever seen.
It is not merely bitter intolerance, arrogance, and want of spiritual perception, which we have to condemn in these writers. It is a want of fairness and honor, of which we think they must be conscious. We fear they are of those who hold the opinion that the end sanctifies the means, and who, by pretending to serve the God of truth by other means than strict truth, have drawn upon the "ministers of religion" the frequent obloquy of "priestcraft." How else are we to construe the artful use of the words "dishonest" and "infidel," wherever they are likely to awaken the fears and prejudices of the ignorant?
Of as bad a stamp as any is the part of this book headed "Spurious Public Opinion." Here, as in the insinuations against Charles Burleigh, we are unable to believe the writers to be sincere. Where we think they are, however poor and narrow we may esteem their statement, we can respect it, but here we cannot.
Who can believe that such passages as the following stand for any thing real in the mind of the writer?
"Indeed, there is nothing that can possibly check the spirit of murder, but the fear of death. That was all that Cain feared; he did not say, People will put me in prison, but, They will put me to death; and how many other murders he may have committed, when released from that fear, the sacred writer does not tell us!"
Why does not the writer of this passage draw the inference, and accuse God of mistake, as he says his opponents accuse Him, whenever they attempt to get beyond the Jewish ideas of vengeance. He plainly thinks death was the only safe penalty in this case of Cain.
"The reasoning from these drivellings of depravity in malefactors is to the last degree wretched and absurd. Hard pushed indeed must he be in argument who can consent to dive down into the polluted heart of a Newgate criminal, in order to fish up, from the confessions of his monstrous, unnatural obduracy, an argument in that very obduracy against the fit punishment of his own crimes."
We can only wish for such a man, that the vicissitudes of life may break through the crust of theological arrogance and Phariseeism, and force him to "dive down" into the depths of his own nature. We should see afterwards whether he would be so forward to throw stones at malefactors, so eager to hurry souls to what he regards as a final account.