otten court, a falling
empire, continual strife, a family of scolding women, and a foolish
son--might have been considered sufficient marks of God's displeasure,
without causing the wisest of men to pen, and publish to the world, such
a minute record of his madness, folly and misery, as we find in
Ecclesiastes. But these shipwrecked mariners were divinely directed to
pile up the sad memorials of their errors on the reefs where they were
wrecked, as beacons of warning to all inexperienced voyagers on life's
treacherous sea. The light-house is built by the same authority as the
custom-house, and is even more necessary.

Now let us take note of the objects of our investigation. We are not in
search of the literary beauty or poetic inspiration of the Bible; but we
inquire by what right does it command our obedience? Nor are we about to
inquire whether, when we have tried the Bible at the tribunal of our
reason, we shall give it a diploma to commend it to the patronage of
other critics; but whether it comes to us attested by such evidence of
being the Word of God, that our reason shall reverently bow down before
it as a higher authority, and seek light from it by which to judge of
all spiritual and moral matters.

Attempts are continually made to confuse these great questions, by
concessions of the literary excellence of the Bible, on the part of
those who deny its divine authority. For instance, one of the modern
oracles of infidelity says, and his admirers incessantly repeat the
grand discovery: "The writings of the Prophets contain nothing above the
reach of the human faculties. Here are noble and spirit-stirring appeals
to men's conscience, patriotism, honor and religion; beautiful poetic
descriptions, odes, hymns, expressions of faith almost beyond praise.
But the mark of human infirmity is on them all, and proofs or signs of
miraculous inspiration are not found in them."[120]

But what do the toiling millions of earth care about beautiful poetic
descriptions of a heaven and a hell that have no reality? Or what does
it signify to you or me, reader, that the Bible raises its head far
above the other cedars of earthly literature? If its top reaches not to
heaven, can it make a ladder long enough to carry us there? The Bible
contains predictions beyond the reach of the human faculties, as we have
fully proved. These predictions at least are from God, and have no mark
of human infirmity on them.

It does not at all meet