Page images
PDF
EPUB

its convictions when they are in accordance with the belief of any great church. Even in criticism, the very essence of which is the judgment of the individual, every sound inquirer keeps in mind the fallibility of his own reason, and has more confidence in his conclusions when they are supported by the authority of a large number of learned, honest, unbiassed searchers after truth. Still the question what church shall be allowed the greatest weight of authority, and how much authority is to be allowed to any church, or to all churches, and to what subjects the authority extends, must be decided by the reason of the individual under the influence of the Divine spirit. No church can stand between the individual soul and its Creator at the day of judgment, and therefore the individual soul must in the last resort decide in all matters of faith and practice.

So it is with respect to the conscience. The individual must in the last resort follow his own conscience, as the best guide which he has, however fallible and imperfect it may be; but he must do so not in contemptuous disregard of authority, but with a just estimation of it.

We might illustrate this subject of authority by reference to the Common or the Civil Law. Who can deny that they have vast authority in the administration of justice throughout the world? Our governors and judges do not deny the authority of the Common or the Roman Law, when they deny the infallibility of either. Allowing that the law, according to either of these systems, is founded in right reason, and has "its seat in the bosom of God," yet may it not be overruled? Is not allowance made for the growth of reason?

It is feared by many, that, in denying infallibility to the Scriptures, we take away one of the supports of morality. The other side of the question has been overlooked. It has not been considered how far this doctrine of infallibility has been the support of wrong-doing in the Christian Church. But I think it can be demonstrated that practices, now generally regarded as inhuman and inconsistent with the spirit of Christ, have found their strongest support in this doctrine of the absolute infallibility of the Scriptures. The infliction of horrible penalties for religious opinion, the principle of retaliation in criminal jurisprudence, the cruelties in the punishment of witchcraft, and the custom of chattel slavery, have prevailed under the supposed sanction of the Scriptures. If they are regarded in all their utterances as an infallible guide, they do give that sanction. The Southern Christian teachers of every name who united in proclaiming slavery to be sanctioned by the Bible were not only honest, but right, if the Scriptures in every part are regarded as an infallible standard of truth and duty, without the least mixture of human error. The old expositors of the Scriptures, who wrote before the modern agitation of the subject of slavery, - an agitation excited, as I think, by the Holy Spirit of God in the human reason and the human heart, — give abundant support to the Southern religious teachers. While I admit this, however, I should still maintain that the spirit of the prophets, as well as of Christ and St. Paul, fairly deduced

[ocr errors]

from all which they uttered or wrote, is clearly and strongly against sla very in every form.

It would be strange, indeed, if in the present advanced state of society Christians should not, in respect to the application of the essential principles and spirit of Christian morality to many outward usages, have juster and clearer views than the Apostle of the Gentiles.

If it still be asked how we are to distinguish the word of God in the Scriptures from the imperfections and errors mixed up with it, I reply, By the reason of the individual. The same Holy Spirit which inspired prophets and apostles to speak and write is still living and present to illuminate and strengthen the reason of hearers and readers to judge, and to separate the eternal truth from the errors and imperfections which, imbibed from the age in which they lived, clung to the greatest prophets, such as John the Baptist, and the chiefest Apostles, such as Paul. "He that is spiritual judgeth all things." (1 Cor. ii. 15.)

There is limited, yet trustworthy, but no absolute, infallible authority whatever for man. God is infallible. But every human interpreter and all collective bodies of human interpreters of Divine manifestations are fallible. The human senses, the human intellect, the human memory, oral tradition, and historical records are all fallible. Yet by their aid we may attain not only faith, but knowledge. The light which it has pleased God to bestow upon us is amply sufficient to guide us to the blessedness for which we were designed, in this world and that which is to come. Whether the necessities or the interests of humanity would be better promoted by an infallible standard of doctrine and duty, either in a written volume, in a church, or a single individual, is a question which it is not worth while to discuss. What God has done, not what it is necessary or useful for him to do, is the important concern for us. Who shall undertake to prescribe to the Creator the best method for the enlightenment and improvement of the world? Undoubtedly there is a part of our nature which inclines us to seek repose in an outward, infallible standard. But it may well be doubted whether this is the highest part of our nature. It seems rather to be a selfish love of ease and quiet, an aversion to action and progress, a desire to escape anxiety, suspense, and labor, rather than to attain to truth and perfection. The result is rather an arbitrary suppression of doubt, than a genuine exercise of faith. "If I go not away,' says the Great Teacher, "the Helper will not come." It well deserves to be considered whether it is not an actual fact, that those Christians enjoy a stronger as well as a purer faith, who, giving up the doctrine of Scriptural infallibility as a dream, conceding to authority its just weight, yet guarding against its undue influence, feel bound to trust their own reason under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as the supreme judge, believing that to deny reason is to deny God.

JOEL.

INSCRIPTION.

1 The word of Jehovah, which came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.

I.

A description of the desolation of the land of Judah by locusts.. CH. I. 2 -20.

2

HEAR this, ye old men;

Give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land!
Hath such a thing happened in your days,
Or even in the days of your fathers?

3 Tell ye your children of it,

And let your children tell their children,
And their children another generation!

4 That which the gnawing-locust left hath the swarminglocust eaten,

LO

5

And that which the swarming-locust left hath the licking

locust eaten,

And that which the licking-locust left hath the consuminglocust eaten.

Awake, ye drunkards, and weep!

Howl, all ye drinkers of wine,

For the new wine, which is snatched from your mouths! 6 For a nation hath come up on my land,

Strong, and not to be numbered;

Their teeth are the teeth of the lion; They have the jaw-teeth of the lioness. 7 They have made my vine a desolation, And my fig-tree a broken branch;

[blocks in formation]

They have made it quite bare, and cast it away;
The branches thereof are made white.

8 Lament ye, like a bride,

Clothed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth!

9 The flour-offering and the drink-offering are cut off from the house of Jehovah;

The priests, the servants of Jehovah, mourn.

10 The field is laid waste;

11

The ground mourneth,

For the corn is laid waste;
The new wine is dried up;
The oil languisheth.

Lament, O ye husbandmen, Howl, O ye vine-dressers,

For the wheat and the barley,

For the harvest of the field hath perished!

12 The vine is dried up,

13

And the fig-tree languisheth;

The pomegranate, the palm-tree, and the apple-tree, — All the trees of the field, are withered;

Yea, joy is withered away from the sons of men.

Gird yourselves with sackcloth and mourn, ye priests! Howl, ye ministers of the altar!

Come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God, For the flour-offering and the drink-offering are withholden from the house of your God!

14 Appoint ye a fast, proclaim a solemn assembly! Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land Into the house of Jehovah, your God,

15

And cry unto Jehovah!

Alas, alas the day!

For the day of Jehovah is near;

Even as destruction from the Almighty doth it come.

16 Is not our food cut off from before our eyes,

Yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God?

17 The seeds are rotten under their clods,

The storehouses are laid desolate, the garners are destroyed;

« PreviousContinue »