Note 21 — INTUITIVE EVIDENCE OF THE EXISTENCE OF SPIRITS. (continued 6)
Reading edition
I quote here the language of Samuel, the wicked pope of Judea, to Saul, respecting the destruction of the tribe of Amalek: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.”
One would think here was butchery enough to satisfy a devil, but it does not satisfy the God of the Bible. Saul is deposed for giving quarter to Agag, and not carrying his revenge so far as to destroy the flocks and herds as well as the captive king, of whom the blood-thirsty, blasphemous pontiff becomes himself the cold-blooded executioner, hewing Agag to death before the Lord. Dr. Berg alleges that men are assimilated to the god whom they worship. What ought then to be the effect of worshipping the God thus described in the Bible?
How does this comport with the extravagant precepts of Christ, agreeably to which we are to return good for evil?
There cannot in the history of any pagan country be found an instance more glaring, of the unjustifiable perpetuation of revenge, than this putting a whole people to the sword for a wrong done by their ancestors some hundred years before.
If examples draw us, while precepts do no more than lead, according to the proverb, what influence are such examples of the morality of the Bible likely to produce in those who are taught to view it as the word of God?
From the pernicious influence of such religious errors may the noble spirits of our progenitors relieve us and our offspring!