_It is a wrong use of the Bible to cite its authors as of equal authority,
even in the spheres of theology and religion._
The teachings of any human writing come clothed with such authority as the
author's name lends to it or its intrinsic force wins for it.
If in the work of an obscure economic writer, of no perceptible ability,
you come upon the theory that the land of a people belongs to the people;
that its passing into the absolute ownership of private persons is the
basic evil of our civilization; that the nation must resume the
inalienable rights of the people at large, in the resources of all wealth,
and regulate the individual usufruct of land in the interests of the
entire body politic--you will probably toss the book contemptuously from
you as the crazy lucubration of a fool.
If in reading John Stuart Mill's Principles of Political Economy you come
upon this theory, cautiously broached, you are constrained to treat it
with the consideration due an acknowledged master in this science. If
again in the first elaborate work of a new author, Progress and Poverty,
you meet this same theory, boldly laid down as the central theme of the
book, and contended for as the real solution of the persistent problem of
pauperism, you are disposed to pass it by unheeded. The author's name
carries to your mind no prestige of tradition. He speaks from no
time-honored university chair. No array of imposing titles hang upon the
plain 'Henry George,' of the title page. But you become interested in
these brilliant pages of genius and follow the author, with growing
sympathy, to the end.
You lay the book down, feeling as though a spell had been upon you, in
which you could form no sound judgment. You lay it by accordingly, to take
it up after some weeks, work over its positions, and find your first
impressions confirmed; to realize that here is a work of real, rare power;
an epoch-making book, which, if it does not carry your conviction,
commands your careful consideration.
Precisely so we are to be affected by the Biblical authors. There are
writings in the Bible by utterly unknown writers. A letter of an obscure
author cannot come with the weight of a letter from St. Paul. There are
writings of widely different mental force. Biblical authors varied in
personal power as much as other authors. Inspiration cannot do away with
the limitations of the human individuality. It must be modified by its
instrumentality. The saints are of various orders. Even the diamond books
which reflect the light of God so brilliantly may not be all of first
water. We must allow for the hues in the less perfect prisms. Were the
greatest musical genius in the world to sit before the key-boards he could
not draw from a harmonium the notes of a Lucerne organ. The impact of a
writing on our souls must be proportionate to the spiritual and ethical
force with which it is charged. Everyone recognizes this practically. None
of us, however orthodox, professes to be as much inspired by Esther as by
Job; by Chronicles as by Kings; by Daniel as by Isaiah; by Jude as by
Paul. That simply means that there is not as much inspiration in some
Biblical authors as in others. No author is always at his best. His work
differs. The second epistle to the Thessalonians is not level with the
epistle to the Romans. The third epistle of John, if it be of John, is
surely not as highly inspired as the first epistle of John. Inspiration is
plainly a matter of degrees.
The recognition of this common-sense principle, theoretically, would
remand the darker doctrines of Christianity to such authority as the lower
order of Biblical writings possess. The terrifying and torturing teachings
of the New Testament are from obscure authors, or from the masters in
their lower moods. The representations of a wrathful God, of an avenging
Christ, of a hell of horrors, are found in such epistles as Second
Thessalonians, whose authorship is uncertain; as Jude or Second Peter,
about whose authorship and date we have only the probability that no
apostle wrote them, and that they were written after the first, fresh
inspiration had passed from the church. Rabbinical speculations and Greek
superstitions show themselves at work in the Christian Church.[32] The
unquestioned letters of Paul are sunny and sweet. In them we see the
father of Christian Restorationism. If he knows anything of a dark side to
the resurrection, as he shows elsewhere that he does, he leaves it in its
own shadows; and in the height of this great argument of Corinthians
brings to the front only the resurrection to life and joy. "Knowing the
fear of the Lord we--persuade men."
The first epistle of John is true to its favorite symbol of the light.
There are no clouds in it. The God revealed in the greatest writings of
the greatest authors of the New Testament is Love. The Christ they picture
is _Christus Consolator_. The full breath of inspiration opens only the
upper register of notes. The voices of the soul are buoyant, joyous,
hopeful.
If you are willing to follow the most inspired writers, in their most
inspired moods, up into the heights whither the divine afflatus bore them,
you will mount above the cloud-level, and leave to those who lag after
feebler guides on the lower ranges of truth, the chill mists that eat into
the soul, while you rejoice in the light.