p. 202 | Questions Concerning the Bible

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 29, 1866

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 27, No. 26.

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Questions Concerning the Bible.

By Religious Tract Society Publication

THOSE who deem the Bible an imposture are requested to answer the following questions:

1. Can any one inform me when it was first palmed on the credulity of mankind?

2. How is it so little adapted to gratifying the sinful propensities of human nature?

3. How is it so pure and lofty, and God-like in its demands?

4. How has it been so wonderfully preserved in a world so hostile to its interests?

5. How has Omnipotence so often interposed to verify its claims?

6. How is it that Palestine, Idumea, Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, and Rome are all, at the present moment, monuments, to the very letter, of the truth of its awful predictions?

7. How can we account for its early and signal triumphs over the temples and religion of Paganism, when no arm of power interposed on behalf of its heralds; and when imprisonment and death awaited its converts?

8. How is it that the happiest states of society have been found under its auspices, and that nations rise in the scale of civilization and humanity, as they yield themselves to its benign and purifying influence?

9. How is it that the greatest ornaments of human nature, those who have shed an imperishable lustre on the race, have been Christians?

10. How is it that the most wonderful transformations our world has ever beheld, have been wrought upon individual character by the mighty power of the gospel of Christ?

11. How comes it to pass, that the Bible, written by so many different persons, in so many different ages, is yet so consistent and harmonious in all its parts?

12. How is it, that in the nineteenth century of the Christian era, the imposture is further than ever it was from detection, and the advocates and friends of Christianity are more numerous than at any former period since Jesus of Nazareth appeared in our world?

13. How is it that all other systems of religion are gradually sinking into decay, while Christianity is coming forth before the nations, "fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?"

14. In one word, if it be an imposture, how is it that it answers to every just view of the blending rectitude and love of God? How is it that it realizes the best hopes of human nature? How is it that it is the best solace for mourners; the best mitigator of human woes; the best preservative against the vices and blandishments of the world; the best security of all the social virtues; the best conservator of the peace, sanctity, and happiness of families; and the best friend in the hour of dissolution, when all the visions of life have fled, and the anxious creature of mortality sees nothing before him but the unknown regions of the invisible world?

Receive, then, the Bible as the Word of God; believe in that Saviour whom it makes known, and you shall be saved.—Religious Tract Society Publication.