It is for the same reason, too, that the good and pious, in all ages, have held fast to the sacred Volume, in spite of its many strange, and at first sight inexplicable, statements and expressions; while, on the other hand, the caviller and the impious have always been able to find, in those peculiarities, objects for their attack. The latter, looking only for faults, blots, and defects, seize at once upon those strange and harsh expressions, which, as already explained, the Volume necessarily contains on its surface, (or it would never have been suited for the time in which it was written, or for the people to whom it was first addressed); and holding these up in the brighter light of our day—a light which, in fact, has itself come from the pure beams of another part of the same Volume, the Gospel,—they strive to show their deformity and absurdity, their contrariness to genuine truth and goodness. And let them do so: it is but the carrion-bird seeking the food that it loves: they wish to find death and not life in the sacred Volume, and they find it. "With the pure thou wilt show thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt show thyself unsavory." God shows Himself (and His Word also) to men, just according to their states of mind. If they are in evil, they will see Him as evil,—"wrathful," "jealous," "furious;" but if in good, they will see Him as good, gentle, loving, merciful: "with the merciful, thou wilt show thyself merciful, and with the upright man thou wilt show thyself upright."[1] The simple good man, while reading his Bible, finds many things, indeed, which he cannot understand, and which seem to him a little strange,—but he passes them by, saying to himself that it is not
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