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petty heathen god, than as the Supreme Ruler of the Universe.

'The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men builded. And the Lord said behold the people is one, and they have all one language, and this they begin to do. Go to, let us go down and there confound their language that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth, and they left off to build the city.'

If the credulous Jehovist could have foreseen the scientific audacity of modern times, annihilating time and space through a control of Nature's forces outstripping the fabulous exploits of ancient gods-could he have forecast the future of comparative philology, tracing the evolution and divergence of language, as tribes became separated by forests, rivers, and mountains, how clearly he would have seen the folly of interpreting providential action through the unattested legends of traditional theosophy! And yet modern Piety still canonises this ancient myth, which, but for its accidental insertion in a book accepted as infallible, would have been, long since, classed among the fantastic creations of mythology.

The philologist may smile at the fiction of all mankind speaking but one language, so recently as four thousand years ago, but the zealous missionary, who spends a life in learning barbarous dialects, must sigh as he thinks of the priceless boon of a universal tongue, and marvel at the mysterious wisdom which multiplies the difficulties of apostolic labours through the miraculous confusion of tongues.

In a famous episode of patriarchal life, the Jehovist depicts the Deity tampering with the heathen abomination of human sacrifice to test the obedience of Abraham.1 When Jehovah pronounced the doom of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham protested against the possible punishment of the innocent, and even impressed on Jehovah the importance of consistency in the administration of divine justice; 2 and yet this man uttered no word of remonstrance when commanded to slay his only son, but hastened preparations for the hideous rites of human sacrifice. The anonymous author of the Epistle to the Hebrews commends the conduct of the patriarch as a noble instance of faith in God, but in this narrative we find a fatal precedent for the commission of crimes supposed to be divinely sanctioned. The lamentable results of this pernicious superstition might be averted among a people enjoying the privilege of personal intercourse with the Deity, but when the priests of heathen gods appealed to parents for the blood of their children, no voice from heaven arrested the sacrifice of their firstborn, surrendered to the gods with a piety which rivalled the faith of Abraham.

We are told that in modern times the heavenly voices of antiquity have been replaced by the silent promptings of the Spirit; but those who hope for divine enlightenment also dread Satanic illusion; if it is therefore true that the Deity ever tampered with the human conscience by commanding the commission of crime, how shall we determine the source of our

1 Gen. xxii.

2 Gen. xviii. 23-33.

3 Heb. xi. 17.

temptations but by assigning to Reason the absolute control of Faith?

Again, the Jehovist teaches us, through the story of Jacob's fraudulent personation of Esau, that successful treachery may win the blessing of God.1 St. Paul explains the difficulty through the mystery of election.2 Jehovah preferred Jacob to Esau, and revealed his choice to Rebecca. The mother and son were not, therefore, domestic traitors deceiving a husband and father, to rob a son and brother of the divine blessing, but pious conspirators co-operating with the Deity in the fulfilment of His providential designs. Abraham cheerfully obeyed the divine command to sacrifice his firstborn. Would not Isaac have proved equally compliant if instructed to disinherit Esau ? Or could Jehovah devise no more suitable means for the accomplishment of this object than the sanction of human treachery? We answer that the compilers have deceived themselves and Paul by credulously accepting Semitic legends as divine revelation.

A candid and impartial consideration of these episodes in alleged revelation inevitably points to the conclusion that Genesis is not a divinely inspired work. The translators of our Authorised Version speak of the Deity in terms familiar to their contemporaries in association with Infinite Divinity, but if they had introduced the Creator as Elohim, and then abruptly debased Providential action in the name of Jehovah-Elohim, English students of Scripture would have long since detected the discrepancy, and sought some explanation of divergence in the name and policy of Divinity. But

1 Gen. xxvii,

2 Rom. ix. 11-16.

the translators of the Authorised Version worked in the infancy of biblical criticism, when the foregone conclusions of unreasoning Piety silenced the voice of Scepticism, and apostolic acceptance of Moses and the Prophets was quite sufficient to satisfy English divines of the infallibility of the Pentateuch. All this is now changed; and when we come into possession of the exhaustive labours of the eminent Hebrew scholars now at work on the contents of the Old Testament, even British piety will doubtless learn to question the prescriptive rights of Mosaic theosophy.

As Orthodoxy identifies the God of Israel with the God of Job, does Jehovah appear to greater advantage in dramatic revelation? The curtain rises on a scene of patriarchal happiness in the land of Uz,1 where Job, the greatest of Eastern chieftains, pre-eminent in piety and virtue, enjoys in lavish profusion the temporal blessings assigned to righteousness in the age of the patriarchs. Anon we witness a scene in heaven. Satan attends, with other sons of God, a grand reception given by Jehovah, who asks him if he has considered the many virtues of the exemplary Job. But the sneering demon insinuates that this vaunted friend of God is simply righteous because he finds it pay, and in calamity would utter curses instead of praise. In refutation of this vile calumny, the Deity consents to test the piety of Job through the ordeal of affliction; and all that he possesses, except his very life, is placed at the disposal of Satanic cruelty.

It is unnecessary to dwell on the oft-told tale of the patience of Job under the trying platitudes of his too

1 Job i.

candid friends. Our interest lies in the popular impression that the curtain falls on a vindicated Providence. But the afflicted patriarch had seven sons and three daughters, all of whom, with numerous herds and shepherds, perished by fire and sword and tempest. How, therefore, could divine justice be conclusively vindicated, unless through the miraculous restoration to life of the victims of unmerited but supernatural calamity? As Job witnessed the growth of a second family amid scenes of renewed prosperity, he may have been consoled for the loss of the dead, but it can have been no compensation to the slain daughters of Job that their sisters and successors were the most lovely women and the richest heiresses in the land of Uz,1 whilst they rested in tombs on which might have been inscribed The Victims of the Gods.

If all this seems impious to conscientious believers in an infallible Bible, let them consider whether the impiety does not rather lie with those who enrol the Deity with Satan among the dramatis persona of the Semitic Eschylus, and accept the fiction vocal of a whirlwind as a voice from heaven, instead of the vain attempt of some presumptuous mortal to dramatise Divinity.

In what colours is the national Deity depicted in the pages of Exodus? Jehovah, having forgotten the children of Israel during the period in which they drifted into Egyptian bondage, suddenly remembered the unhappy heirs of Abraham, with whom He had ratified a solemn covenant lavish in prospective benefits?? Moses and Aaron were, therefore, accredited to the

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