A text is available
for every variety of belief. Christians usually emphasize those texts
that make for what they hold true, and slur over others. "Look not
on the wine when it is red" is preached in every Sunday School, while
"Take a little wine for thy stomach's sake" is seldom quoted save by
brewers. The Bible, the work of a hundred hands during a span of a
thousand years, represents a great variety of views. It is certainly
an inspired book if there ever was one; so much inspiration could not
have come from it if none had gone into it. But to extract a satisfactory
ethical code from it is possible only by a process of judicious
selection and ingenious inference. The Mosaic code is held by
Christians to be now abrogated; the recorded teachings of Christ are
fragmentary and touch only a few fundamental matters. How, for example,
shall we ascertain from the Bible the will of God with respect to the
trust problem, or currency reform, or penal legislation? Times have
changed, our problems are no longer those of the ancient Jews; a
hundred delicate questions arise to which no answers can be will of
God to be clearly and unquestionably known, why should we obey it?
Because he is stronger, and can reward or punish? If that is the reason,
the freehearted man would defy Him. Might does not make right. If God
were to command us to sin, it would not be right to obey Him. On the
contrary, we should sympathize with Mill in his outburst: "Whatever
power such a being may have over me, there is one thing which he shall
not do: he shall not compel me to worship him.
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