ITS SUPERIORITY IN CHARACTER, COMPOSITION, TO ALL UNINSPIRED LITERATURE. A Lecture BY S. R. BOSANQUET, Esq. AUTHOR OF "NEW LOGIC," "EXCELSIOR," ETC. ETC. PRINTED BY REQUEST. THEC BODI CDOMUMINAR LONDON: HATCHARD AND CO. 187 PICCADILLY, THE BIBLE. ALL of us believe that there is a God. All of us are sensible of the inferiority of man to God; and that there is an infinite difference and distinction between the human and the divine. Supposing this simple state of things, and our consciousness of them, it would seem that if any one were to profess to us that God had made a communication, a revelation to man, such an announcement would be received by every one with the most rapturous joy and interest. We are all conscious of a great deal of evil, of infirmity, and wickedness, and misery in the world. We all believe God to be perfectly good, perfectly wise, perfectly happy in His own nature. If, therefore, in such revelation from God,so good, so wise, so pure, so perfectly happy,— He should profess that His communication to us was for the purpose, and with the promise, to take away from us all this infirmity, and wickedness, and misery, and to make us also good, and wise, and pure, and happy, and to be like Himself-would not the world receive and welcome this professed revelation with the most absorbing interest and delight, and desire to find it true, and to appropriate it? The Bible professes to be such a revelation: the Bible is such a communication. Yet men neglect it, and have no taste for it. I said that all believe there is a God, and that He is good. I mean all here. Alas! there are some who deny this, even now; but they are not many. There are a vast number—I wish I could confidently exclude from them all herewho practically deny this;-who practically deny that God has made or makes a revelation to man for his happiness and good, by their neglect and disesteem for it. The Bible is a blessed and beneficent revelation to mankind for his happiness and blessing; and the world in general has not a taste for it. It feels it unsuitable, unpalatable, inconvenient to the business and pursuits and objects of life; and men accept it as a task, a duty, a medicine to be used as a necessity, and as sparingly as possible,—not as a grateful, delicious, life-giving food, to be used, appropriated, and enjoyed daily and hourly, and incorporated with us in all our habits, and thoughts, and enjoyments. The world, and worldly wisdom and taste, has always set itself studiously to depreciate and repudiate the information conveyed to us in the Bible. Former generations have denied it altogether, and condemned it as the forgery and fiction of interested Priests. Their ignorance and error have become too staring even to bear the light and illumination of worldly science and investigation. But now their business and boast is to believe in the Bible; to confess that it was written by the authors which it professes, or compiled from their writings;-but to narrow |