Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/279

232 in view, and to write for the encouragement of his countrymen, perhaps designing his work should pass for what it is, a politico-religious romance.

All of these books hitherto mentioned seem written by earnest men, with no intention to deceive. Their manly honesty is everywhere apparent. But the book of Chronicles is of a very different character. Here is an obvious attempt on the writer's part to exalt the character of orthodox kings, and depress that of heretical kings; to bring forward the Priests and the Levites, and give everything a ceremonial appearance. This design will be obvious to any one who reads the stories in Chronicles, and then turns to the parallel passages in Samuel and Kings. To take but a single instance: the writer of the book of Samuel gives an account of David; tells of his good and evil qualities; does not pass over his cruelty, nor extenuate his sin. But in Chronicles there is not a word of this: nothing of the crime of imperial adultery; nothing of Nathan's rousing apologue, and Thou-art-the-man. The thing speaks for itself.

Now if these books have any divine authority, what shall we do with such contradictions; deny the fact? We live too long after Dr Faustus for so easy a device. Shall we say, with a modern divine, the true believer will accept both statements with the same implicit faith? This also may be doubtful.

To look back upon the field we have passed, it must be confessed that the claims made for the Old Testament have no foundation in fact; its books, like others, have a mingling of good and evil. We see a gradual progress of ideas therein, keeping pace with the civilization of the world. Vestiges of ignorance, superstition, folly, of unreclaimed selfishness, yet linger there. Fact and fiction are strangely blended; the common and miraculous, the divine and the human, run into one another. We find rude notions of God in some parts, though in others the more lofty. Here, the moral and religious sentiment are insulted; there, is beautiful instruction for both. Human