ses to explain that, by saying that the story was all
invented by priests and prophets afterwards, to rebuke the people
for falling into idolatry, he must have his fancy. Thought is free-
-for the present, at least--though it is written that for every idle
word that men speak, they shall give account at the day of judgment.
But one question I must ask, and I am sure that British common sense
and British honesty will ask it too: If these prophets were really
good men, fearing God, and wishing to make their countrymen fear him
likewise, would it not have been a rather strange way of showing
that they feared God to tell their countrymen a set of fables and
lies? Good men are not in the habit of telling lies now, and never
have been; for no lie is of the truth, or can possibly help the
truth in any way; and all liars have their portion in the lake which
burneth with fire and brimstone. And that such men as the prophets
of whom we read in the Old Testament did not know that, and
therefore invented this history, or invented anything else, is a
thing incredible and absurd.

Here we have the Old Testament, an infinitely good book, giving us
infinitely good advice and good news, and news too concerning God--
God's laws, God's providence, God's dealings, such as we get nowhere
else. And shall we believe that this infinitely good book is
founded upon falsehood? or that the good men who wrote it could
fancy it necessary to stoop to falsehood, and take the devil's tools
wherewith to do God's work? That they may have been imperfectly
informed on some points there is no doubt; for the Bible tells us
that they were men of like passions with ourselves, and they may not
always have been true to the Spirit of God who was teaching them,
even as we are not, though he teaches us. They only knew in part
and prophesied in part; and now that which is perfect is come, that
which is in part is done away; the mystery of Christ was not
revealed to them as it has been to us by the holy apostles and
prophets of the new dispensation, of which St. Paul says, comparing
it with the knowledge which the old Jews had when the gospel came,
That the glory of the law had no glory, by reason of the more
excellent glory of the gospel. They may, I say, have made slight
errors in unimportant matters, though it is far more probable that
those errors have crept into the text, as the Scriptures were copied
again and again through many centuries by different