A Theologico-Political Treatise part 3 | Page 7

that from these different ground; for
religion selected by the Apostles, many quarrels and schisms distracted
the Church, even in the earliest times, and doubtless they will continue
so to distract it for ever, or at least till religion is separated from
philosophical speculations, and reduced to the few simple doctrines
taught by Christ to His disciples; such a task was impossible for the
Apostles, because the Gospel was then unknown to mankind, and lest
its novelty should offend men's ears it had to be adapted to the
disposition of contemporaries (2 Cor. ix:19, 20), and built up on the
groundwork most familiar and accepted at the time. (56) Thus none of

the Apostles philosophized more than did Paul, who was called to
preach to the Gentiles; other Apostles preaching to the Jews, who
despised philosophy, similarly, adapted themselves to the temper of
their hearers (see Gal. ii. 11), and preached a religion free from all
philosophical speculations. (57) How blest would our age be if it could
witness a religion freed also from all the trammels of superstition!

CHAPTER XII
- OF THE TRUE ORIGINAL OF THE DIVINE LAW, AND
WHEREFORE SCRIPTURE IS CALLED SACRED, AND THE
WORD OF GOD. HOW THAT, IN S0 FAR AS IT CONTAINS THE
WORD OF GOD, IT HAS COME DOWN TO US UNCORRUPTED.
(1) Those who look upon the Bible as a message sent down by God
from Heaven to men, will doubtless cry out that I have committed the
sin against the Holy Ghost because I have asserted that the Word of
God is faulty, mutilated, tampered with, and inconsistent; that we
possess it only in fragments, and that the original of the covenant which
God made with the Jews has been lost. (2) However, I have no doubt
that a little reflection will cause them to desist from their uproar: for
not only reason but the expressed opinions of prophets and apostles
openly proclaim that God's eternal Word and covenant, no less than
true religion, is Divinely inscribed in human hearts, that is, in the
human mind, and that this is the true original of God's covenant,
stamped with His own seal, namely, the idea of Himself, as it were,
with the image of His Godhood.
(3) Religion was imparted to the early Hebrews as a law written down,
because they were at that time in the condition of children, but
afterwards Moses (Deut. xxx:6) and Jeremiah (xxxi:33) predicted a
time coming when the Lord should write His law in their hearts. (4)
Thus only the Jews, and amongst them chiefly the Sadducees, struggled
for the law written on tablets; least of all need those who bear it
inscribed on their hearts join in the contest. (5) Those, therefore, who
reflect, will find nothing in what I have written repugnant either to the
Word of God or to true religion and faith, or calculated to weaken
either one or the other: contrariwise, they will see that I have
strengthened religion, as I showed at the end of

Chapter X
.; indeed, had it not been so, I should certainly have decided to hold my
peace, nay, I would even have asserted as a way out of all difficulties
that the Bible contains the most profound hidden mysteries; however,
as this doctrine has given rise to gross superstition and other pernicious
results spoken of at the beginning of

Chapter V
., I have thought such a course unnecessary, especially as religion
stands in no need of superstitious adornments, but is, on the contrary,
deprived by such trappings of some of her splendour.
(6) Still, it will be said, though the law of God is written in the heart,
the Bible is none the less the Word of God, and it is no more lawful to
say of Scripture than of God's Word that it is mutilated and corrupted.
(7) I fear that such objectors are too anxious to be pious, and that they
are in danger of turning religion into superstition, and worshipping
paper and ink in place of God's Word.
(8) I am certified of thus much: I have said nothing unworthy of
Scripture or God's Word, and I have made no assertions which I could
not prove by most plain argument to be true. (9) I can, therefore, rest
assured that I have advanced nothing which is impious or even savours
of impiety.
(10) from what I have said, assume a licence to sin, and without any
reason, at I confess that some profane men, to whom religion is a
burden, may, the simple dictates of their lusts conclude that Scripture is
everywhere faulty and falsified, and that therefore its authority is null;
but such men are beyond the reach of help, for nothing, as the pro verb
has it, can