_This theory of our Bible is, in our age, seen to be the same theory which
all peoples have entertained of their bibles._
For the first time in the history of Europe, Christian people have the
knowledge by which they can correct their ideas about the Bible, in what
may be called a comparative science of Bibliolatry. We know that nearly
every race has had its own Sacred Book. These Sacred Books are now within
the easy reach of all. Any one can examine for himself the Vedas, the
Zend-Avesta and the other Bibles of humanity. Every one can readily form a
just judgment of these Bibles. The light which lighteth every man that
cometh into the world shines from many pages in all of these books. There
are profound thoughts of God, noble ethical ideals, deep perceptions of
sin, yearning desires for human good, gleams of life beyond the grave.
There are prayers we could use here with a few verbal changes, and you
would not recognize their pagan source. There are songs of praise which
might be made our canticles. There are parables that the Master Himself
might have spoken. But the light which shines from heaven through these
books does not disguise their earthly character. Having no glamor of
tradition over our eyes, we can see them to be histories, poems,
philosophies, rituals, counsels of religion, hallowed by age into Sacred
Books.
Yet we find precisely the same notions current in each race about its
Bible that we have cherished concerning our own Bible. The Hindu talks of
his Vedas as the Christian talks of his Testaments. Nay, we find our
conceits quite outdone in the dogmas of these heathen. Mohammedan doctors
of divinity divided into fiercely contesting parties over the question
whether the Koran was created or uncreated; the latter theory, as most
highly magnifying their Sacred Book, of course, becoming the orthodox
doctrine. These learned orthodox divines assured men that the Koran was
verily eternal and uncreated, and of the very essence of God; that the
first transcript of it had been from everlasting by His throne; that a
copy, in one volume, on paper, was, by the hands of the angel Gabriel,
sent down to the lowest heaven in the month of Ramadan; from whence
Gabriel revealed it to Mohammed in instalments, giving him the privilege,
however, of beholding the heavenly volume, bound in silk and adorned with
gold and precious stones, once a year.
We cannot mistake the fact that thoroughly human writings have been
exaggerated into super-human scriptures by the deference rightly called
forth towards these venerable books, so influential in the histories of
nations, so potent in the lives of men; and we can study the phases
through which a wholesome reverence degenerated into a puerile
superstition.
Bibliolatry is pushed to a _reductio ad absurdum_ in these pagan worships
of their Sacred Books. Men will see their folly in the reflected light of
these kindred follies, and another superstition will disappear from
Christendom.
* * * * *
On these grounds, as on others, the unreal Bible must be expected to pass
away. The Church at large never properly authenticated it. The Bible
nowhere calls for such a view of itself. Scripture reveals to a critical
study manifest tokens of its human fallibility, its thoroughly literary
character. We can trace the growth of this theory, and account for it
naturally. As a theory it cannot be stated reasonably. It is a theory
which is shown to be a superstition in the bibliolatries of other peoples.
Our bibliolatry is disappearing none too fast. It has always wrought evil
as well as good on civilization Like all other anachronisms, its original
helpfulness to progress has now become a hindrance. The day when it was of
service is past for educated people, whose minds are open, and the evils
it has caused flow from it still.
It has bred a superstitious use of the Bible which has always made
mischief, though a mischief never realized as sensibly as now. It has
taught men to turn to these holy books and accept unquestioningly all
therein recorded as authoritative on our thought and life. It has barred
all research which even seemed to contradict its history or science, and
has held Europe in mental swaddling-bands, preventing normal growth. It
has taught Most Christian Kings to war with easy consciences, after the
fashion of the Israelites in Canaan, and priests to sing solemn _Te Deums_
over battle-fields where men lay weltering in one another's blood. It has
given slave-owners the coveted proof that the peculiar system was a divine
institution, and has founded the auction block for human cattle solidly
upon the laws of God. It has supplied Joseph Smith with a warrant for
polygamy in the social usages of the Arab sheiks three thousand years ago.
It has opened a sacred refuge for every lie and wrong; no wildest form of
which could fail to find some precedent within these Hebrew histories,
which tell the story of a people's upward growth from savagery. It has
furnished an arsenal stocked with proof texts, from which, through many
generations, priests and doctors have armed themselves to war with one
another; exhausting in ecclesiastical and theological strife the holy
energies of Christian enthusiasm, which might else have changed the face
of the earth. It has arrayed faith against reason, by the necessity it has
imposed of reconciling every new discovery with the cosmogony of Genesis,
or the metaphysics of Romans; putting asunder those whom God hath joined
together, in the needless conflict of science and religion.
It has driven away from the real revelation held in these sacred writings
increasing numbers, in the growing generations; deafening their ears by
its irrational clamor to the voice of the Living God which whispers in
these pages, through the holy men who spake as they were moved of the Holy
Ghost. It has fathered the doubt which to-day sits, cheerless and chill,
within the hearts and homes of thousands who once rejoiced in the warmth
and light of God, but who now accept the alternative their teachers
thrust upon them--"all or none"--and throw away the Blessed Book wherein
God of old revealed Himself to them.
It has made the sacred ark of Israel so vulnerable that its defenders dare
not challenge the great Goliath of the Philistines, who, year by year,
comes forth to strut before the armies of the saints in ridicule of that
they hold so dear; and thus it is to be held responsible for the loss of
the young men who throw away their ancestral faith and go over to the
apparently victorious side of Unbelief.
It has slid in a false bottom to men's faith; shoving in a supposititious
revelation of miracle above the real revelation which is in nature and in
man, and in the Christ as the ideal man; and thus holds back that
reconstruction of belief which Providence is forcing on, as It is shaking
all things, to settle faith upon the everlasting verities: whereon
religion, planting its feet on the solid rock, may lift its head into the
skies, and worship Him in whom we live, and move, and have our being, the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, "Our Father who art in Heaven."
In the name of religion let it die!
Then there will be a resurrection, and the Bible will live again, clothed
in a higher form for our most rational reverence. All that ever made the
Bible a Sacred Book, lives on to-day and will live on while these books
exist. Holy men of old spake as they were moved of the Holy Ghost. They
were most truly inspired. The Biblical writers recorded a real revelation.
These books hold for us the words of God. The Word of God speaks to us in
the person of Jesus Christ.
These spiritual realities, no criticism can touch. And these spiritual
realities make the Bible.
Book of our Fathers, venerable and sacred, speak still to our souls those
words proceeding from out the mouth of God on which man liveth!