And if he employs the one hundred and fifty rules of Hartwell Horne for
misinterpreting the plain portions of the Bible, and his one hundred and
forty other rules for darkening his mind, and confounding his soul, the
Bible will ruin him still quicker. A better book for trying a man, and
for rewarding his honesty, and piety, and charity, if he has those
virtues, and for making them ever more; or for punishing a man's vanity,
and pride, and selfishness, and perversity, if he be the slave of such
passions, God could hardly have given. And to try and to bless men are
the two great objects of all God's revelations.
My opponent was fond of saying that the Bible was an infallible guide.
The statement was not true in any strict and rigorous sense of the
words. And it was foolish for him to make it in an eager debate, for he
could never prove it. And he was not long in finding this out. A few
plain questions set him quite fast. The Bible is an infallible guide,
you say. We ask, Which Bible? The common version? No. John Wesley's
version? No. Dr. Conquest's? No. The Unitarian version? No. _Any_
version? No. Is it some particular Greek or Hebrew Bible then? No. Is it
the manuscripts? No. But these are all the Bibles we have.
The Bible is an infallible guide, you say.
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