THE BIBLE CLASSED AS A “HUMAN BOOK.”
By W. N. G.
A good many “orthodox” ministers and religious journals are criticizing Rev. Lyman Abbott’s ridicule of the story of Jonah and the fish, and his many other skeptical views of the Bible, who heartily indorse his ideas of enforced Sunday observance. They do not realize that the latter position is the logical result of the former. The “great truth” which he is now declaring is that “the Bible is a human book;” and he declares that studying the Bible from this view “increases its value” to him, and “enhances its sacredness.” Thus it becomes of more value and more sacred when deemed to be human than when viewed as the Word of God. Then it is easy to see how he can more highly esteem a man-made sabbath than “the Sabbath of the Lord.” He is logical at least when he says, “I think that experience demonstrates that Sunday rest must be secured, not merely by private agreements, but by legislative enactments vigorously enforced.” If “the Bible is a human book,” then later human doctrines, human institutions, and human law would logically supersede it. And as man-made institutions must be sustained, if sustained at all, by human power, and as the Sunday sabbath is a later institution than the Bible Sabbath, the Sunday law becomes not only proper, but a necessity. This conclusion, however, be it remembered, can only stand on the theory that the Bible is a human book, insufficient for human needs, and its doctrines variable at human will. Therefore those who hold to the Sunday-sabbath institution, which is not of the Bible, and insist upon sustaining it by legislative enactment, which must be in direct antagonism to the Sabbath law of the Bible, stand logically upon the doctrine that “the Bible is a human book.” It can not be gainsaid that their position can be sustained only on the theory that human institutions are of greater value and more sacred than those of God. Such teachers can no more consistently criticize Mr. Abbott’s view of the Bible than they can criticize the Roman Catholic doctrine of the absolute authority of the church; for both are indorsed when the Sunday sabbath and Sunday law are upheld. W. N. G.