“Science takes account of phenomenon, and seeks to understand its law.” Now let us apply the test to some of the objectionable facts of the Bible, and note the result.
Moses said to the children of Israel, Understand, therefore, this day, that the Lord thy God is he who goeth over before thee. As a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face; so shalt thou drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the Lord hath said unto thee. Deut. 9: 3. This language has reference to the inhabitants of the land of Canaan. Their wickedness appears in the following quotations. Deut. 12: 29, 31. When the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods. The destruction of these idolators, who were burning their own sons and daughters in the fire, furnishes unbelievers and skeptics with a great deal of capital, which can be used with ignorance, but not with intelligence.
What was the law governing in the case? The answer is in these words: The course of conduct which is for the greatest good of the greatest number is right. This law is known in the science of civil government. It has its place in the history of all civil governments. Without it we are unable to account for the facts known in the history of our own government. It is a law that lies at the foundation of all moral and social institutions. Those wicked tribes in the land of Canaan, and upon its borders, were in the way of the establishment of any civil institution. It is to be remembered, also, that the children of Israel did not forfeit their rights in the land by going down into Egypt in the time of a famine.
The land was theirs by right of preoccupancy and by gift. Upon their return from Egypt they found no civil institutions in the land, but, on the contrary, the people were burning their own children in the fire. They were also guilty of every abominable thing that was hateful in the sight of God. They were utterly unqualified for citizenship in any civil state, so they were cut off as cankers upon the body.
To the same end, the greatest good to the greatest number, our government has cut off thousands of better men. When the children of Israel went into the idolatrous worship of those wicked heathen and burned their sons and daughters in the fire to Molech, the Lord gave them statutes and laws which were not good, and whereby they might not live. He served them right. How can civil government be perpetuated, or even exist, in the midst of such heathenish idolatry? If infidel objections, based upon the destruction of such wicked hordes as were put to death in Canaan, are worth anything they are worth enough to sanction, by the protection of civil government, all manner of abominations that are known among barbarous heathen.
These enemies of God and the Bible talk as though such an outrage as burning sons and daughters in the fire to idol gods should not be visited with such punishment. Would they do any better? Could they manage such barbarous murderers better for the general good? If it was possible for a civil government to allow such characters the rights of citizenship it would be at the expense of giving license to all other crimes, for there are no crimes greater in their heinousness than murderous idolatry. If infidels ever get the power in this or any other civil government, and carry out the spirit of their lectures against the God of the Bible, the government will soon come to an end, and crime of every grade and character will prevail. American citizens have seen many better men than old Amalek die. It is possible that a few unbelievers who were out in the late civil war have seen better men die. It is possible that a few unbelieving colonels have killed better men upon Southern battle-fields, and it is possible that a few of them [pg 101] are traveling over the country abusing Moses and the God of the Bible for putting worse men to death.
Let us ever remember that the eternal laws of right, sometimes, necessitate the destruction of human life. The greatest good of the greatest number is an object that should always govern the action of a nation. This law should never be disregarded. Murder, having no connection with the general good, is a very different thing. When an individual is put to death by an individual to gratify malice its relations are not with the general good.
All sensible men, who are acquainted with the Bible, know that the facts of the Bible, known in the ancient wars of the nation of Israel, like the facts known in the wars of our own nation, would look terrible in the relations of murder. Things out of their relations are always ugly. A man and a woman living together as husband and wife outside of the marriage relation, would be in adultery, while others living in the same manner, but inside of the matrimonial relation, would be in a grand and praiseworthy union. Why is it that sensible men will wrest the Scriptures, taking things out of their proper relations, and do it to their own condemnation? “Happy is the man who condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.”