As regards the sacrifice of Isaac, Mr. N. shows here, as elsewhere, his monstrous setting aside of God and His authority.
The act is not given as a rule of morality nor of conduct in any way, but as a special case in which Abraham's faith was put to the test. "It came to pass that God did tempt Abraham." Hence there is no kind of analogy with "those who sacrificed their children to Moloch." Men, through a perverse, unnatural, and cruel custom, gratifying the suggestion of their depraved nature, without any command whatever, accomplished of their own will this horrid barbarity, which was done as due to, and as liked and approved by, the god which their nature had pictured to them, as a practice pleasing to him. They got over conscience and affection through the hope of having their lusts and vengeance gratified, so as habitually to treat their children thus. It was their own practice to execute this cruelty-their state of mind.
In Abraham's case it was not, nor ordered of God to be so. God had placed the promises in Isaac in a positive manner; and God puts Abraham to the test, to show whether he had such entire confidence in Him, that he would give up all the promises as possessed (trusting that God would somehow and at all events accomplish them, and raise up Isaac again, for in him God had said that the promises of a seed should be accomplished), and obey God in an express command, let it cost him what it would. When this was proved, God suffered not the child to be touched.
What analogy has this with a practice of passing their children through the fire as agreeable to their self-made god-an act done on their own part? There is no kind of similarity in the cases whatever. Would you say, that a man who hazarded his life to save his father (as the young Munro, who was bitten in two by a shark), was the same as justifying suicide, or pirates offering a man every voyage to a shark, to satisfy some supposed impure god of the sea, and gain men's own ends? And mark how the express command of God (Abraham's sole motive for doing it) is entirely left out here. In the other case it was the habitual violation of the tenderest and strongest moral obligation, to please a god who, if that habitually pleased him, was certainly a devil. Here it is a single case where the supreme and express claim of a God known as sovereign and sovereignly good by Abraham is not caviled with, however little he could account for such a command.
I am at this moment answering objections; but, in the midst of them, Mr. N. inserts these conclusions:-
"I. The moral and intellectual powers of man must be acknowledged as having a right and duty to criticize the contents of scripture.
When so exerted, they condemn portions of the scripture as erroneous and immoral.
The assumed infallibility of the entire scripture is a proved falsity, not merely as to physiology and other scientific matters, but also as to morals," &c. (Ib. p. 115.)
I have, in principle, discussed this already; but it is well to notice it here.
Express it thus: The moral and intellectual powers of all men must be acknowledged as having a right and duty to criticize the contents of scripture. If not, it is merely the personal pretension of some individuals who plume themselves on their own capacity. That is, all men are in a state fully competent to judge of what is becoming to God. That is proved by Abraham's being as bad as Moloch's worshippers! and thousands of enlightened persons having been so far from discovering it, that they thought Abraham a blessed man, and Moloch's worshippers atrocious men and unnatural parents! I should have thought these last a proof that men, whatever the reason, were not capable of forming a just judgment of what becomes God. They clearly prove the assertion false; indeed, one has only to state the proposition to see its falseness. In the first place, the majority have accepted heathen atrocities without a murmur. In the next place, the immense majority of those who have not have accepted the scriptures (which Mr. Ν. condemns as giving a false idea of God, and stating of Him what does not become Him) as the most absolutely perfect revelation of God.
They differ entirely from him.
Mr. Ν.'s statement amounts to this-he condemns certain portions of scripture as erroneous and immoral. Hundreds of infidels and millions of heathens have criticized the scriptures, or heard them criticized, and found proof that they are of God. They have examined them as a whole, and seen a perfect development of God's ways with man; the rule of man's conduct given to him; but the moral apprehension of the conscience, and the whole system dependent on it, being imperfect when God was only partially revealed (for all depended on the light given), they have seen the God of supreme patience condescending to deal with men according to the light they have from Him; but always with evidence enough to prove to the conscience, by things suited to it in the state in which it was, that it was God it had to say to. They have seen that in due time He has revealed Himself perfectly. Mr. N., availing himself of this light, though rejecting it as an imposture, condemns the previous state of imperfection by it. God bore with it, "as a father pitíeth his [little] children," though correcting and leading them on. Which is worthiest of God? But the fact of man's passing four thousand years, either accepting some Moloch-god, or considering as perfection the testimony Mr. N. condemns, proves that the supposed moral power of man was not fit to criticize, unless Mr. N. suppose that the true God was made for his happy self and his companions.
He says, as we have seen, that the infallibility of scripture is a proved falsity. Proved by whom, and to whom? Not to me, by a person who can compare the habitual burning of children to Moloch with an extraordinary putting to the test of one who knew God by seeing if he would give up natural grounds of confidence as to possession of promise and trust wholly in the known and true God. Such a person seems to me morally incapable of judging of right and wrong, and much too far from God to be able to judge of anything. Not one who can criticize a song as inspired without giving himself the trouble of inquiring whether it be so. Nor one who can flippantly comment on a verse as ridiculous when it accounted for and judged the most universal evil influence in the world which he had either ignorantly or culpably passed over.
Mr. N.'s moral and intellectual powers have condemned, or his will has sought reason for condemning, certain portions of scripture carved out from all the rest. But how is this to guide those who only see in such condemnation moral incapacity of judgment in the proofs given, and incorrectness or ignorance as to the facts alleged, or those connected with it?
Mr. N. cannot pretend he is the only one who has examined scripture. Does he pretend that the immense mass of moral intelligent men have not judged quite differently from him? You will say, This does not prove the truth of scripture. I grant it. But it proves that what Mr. N. says in these three conclusions is only immense complacency in his own opinion; for the moral and intellectual powers in question were his own. For instance, why am I to suppose Cuvier's and Buckland's powers, who believed in a universal deluge, inferior to or less exercised than Mr. N.'s who denies it? Can any one tell me any reason Mr. N. has to give me for it except one? Again, take the moral powers of Paul and James, who cite the case of Abraham. They never suspect anything wrong. Were Paul's moral powers unexercised? Mr. N. will say he did not dare to criticize scripture. Were his moral powers then really numbed by it? Was he in the same condition in virtue of believing in scripture as those who gave their children to Moloch? This is Mr. N.'s theory; for he cites, as an admirable act, a deed Mr. N. thinks equally bad. It is not referred to as an act pardoned for ignorance' sake, or passed over in silence, but adduced as a proof of the power of faith. I have read Paul's works, and I have read Mr. N.'s. Which has the truest knowledge of God, and what became Him? What were the effects produced in righteousness, love, devotedness, selfrenouncement, strict holding fast of eternal righteousness and truth, largeness of heart, and flexibility in grace towards all, power of abstraction to embrace combined truth and vast plans in one glance as a whole-power of individuality which concentrated his affections on particular objects as if there were none else, a purity of mind which apprehended right and wrong with instinctive clearness, a spirit of obedience which bowed as a child in humility to the Master whom he knew as his Lord and God? We see powers moral and intellectual, exercised in the most various ways; heathen philosophers and poets, studied at the renowned Tarsus, and rabbinical lore imbibed at the feet of Gamaliel equally well known-a rabban among rabbis; and all these acquirements brought into practical exercise and adaptation to men in the most active life, by one occupied with every kind of character eminently real in his power, and yet carrying perfect abstract theory into the reality. All ended in his taking as a choice excellence what was, "if the voice of morality is allowed to be heard" (Phases, p. 114), not less culpable than sacrificing children to Moloch; nay, he quotes it as excellence "ín heart and intention" (for there was no actual performance), exactly where Mr. N. finds the guilt. Now I humbly conceive that Abraham's heart and intention in giving up all, and the promises too (as to present possession) on the true God's own word, through confidence in Him, and counting on Him to restore Isaac, was not the same as an habitual disposition to put man's own children through the fire, as actually and always agreeable to the heart and nature of "Moloch, horrid king." Moses presents it as a special trial, and the apostle notices it as such. I conceive that the parallel does not prove the immorality of this portion of the scripture, nor the superiority of "the moral and intellectual powers" which think they can criticize it; but something very different from that (and that is moral incapacity to judge), and that Paul, who, by divine teaching, received the scriptures as from God, had his moral and intellectual powers much better formed and much better exercised by the reception of what was divinely superior to himself, than he has, who, depriving himself of all above him, pretends to criticize what Paul bowed to.
It is well Mr. N. should learn another truth. We may be morally exercised on that which is above us without calling it in question. Nay, the highest and only really profitable exercise must be of this kind. Ignorance of God is not the best cultivation of moral powers. The highest, best exercise of moral and intellectual powers is on Him; but if I own Him as such, I own Him above me in supreme authority. I do not call Him in question. He is not the subject of criticism, or the idea of God is lost. But we have already seen that Mr. N. shuts Him always out.
He never gets beyond man. But man, what is he? If it is his judgment, it is every man's-ít is that of the most deceived. There are millions of judgments; that is, there is none, if we speak of a rule. You will tell me there is conscience, which is substantially common to all. I admit it fully; but, where real, it owns the authority of God, always in His supremacy-owns itself the object of His judgment, and does not pretend to be His judge: conscience ceases to act when we do. Hence, though the will be unbroken, and the passions unsubdued, the word of God, the scriptures, tell on it, speak to it, make it quail, attract it as good. And, as far as conscience goes, it does not cavil or criticize; for conscience is in a sinner, and it knows the word is holy, and knows it has to say to God in it. It is a subjective element, and is acted on as to responsibility, is aware of it-and the word acts on this. Felix will tremble, though he may say, "Go thy way," and hope for money, and leave Paul bound.