" Why should the Jews have received that truth
through the medium of a story of which the whole framework was false,
and nothing but the moral true? The framework, moreover, is one so
plainly _professing to be fact_, that it was certain to be received as
such by a simple people. It seems to me that there is something very
suspicious, something repugnant to notions of truth and honest dealing,
in the possible communication of underlying Divine truth through the
medium of stories, which are not stories on the face of them, but
profess and pretend to be statements of fact and authoritatively made.
But, further, it cannot be denied that, whatever allowance may have to
be made under the early Jewish dispensation for the ideas and weaknesses
of a semi-barbarous people, whatever "winking" there may have been "at
times of ignorance," the main object was, by a gradual revelation,[1] by
a system of typical ordinances and ceremonies, to lead up to the full
spiritual light of the Christian dispensation. Everything written, said,
or done, was a step--however small an one--always tending in the one
direction, according to the usual law of Evolution. The Christian
believer may then look back to the early stages as imperfect
foreshadowings and dim illustrations of the whole truth; but he would, I
should think, on any ordinary principles, be shocked to find truth
developed out of positive error.
Pages:
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142