The Bible Deity is superhuman in
nothing; all that His adorers have ascribed to Him being mere
amplification of human powers, human ideas, and human passions. The
Bible Deity 'has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he
hardeneth;' is 'jealous,' especially of other Gods; changeful,
vindictive, partial, cruel, unjust, 'angry with the wicked every day;'
and altogether a Being far from respectable, or worthy to be considered
infinite in wisdom, power, and goodness. Is it credible that a Being
supernaturally wise and good, proclaimed the murderous adulterer David,
a man after his own heart, and commanded the wholesale butchery of
Canaanites? Or that a God of boundless power, 'whose tender mercies are
over all his works,' decreed the extermination of entire nations for
being what he made them? Jehovah did all three. Confessedly a God of
armies and Lord of Hosts; confessedly, too, a hardener of men's hearts
that he might destroy them: he authorised acts at which human nature
shudders, and of which it is ashamed: yet to love, respect, yea,
reverence Him, we are commanded by the self-styled 'stewards of his
mysteries,' on peril of our 'immortal souls.
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