Page:The astral world, higher occult powers; (IA astralworldhighe00tiff).pdf/119

 you wish me to receive the entire book of paper, ink, and calf-skin, to take the book and read it, and believe what it says? I must receive it as I understand it, and faith, therefore, corresponds to my understanding of the book. Is my faith in the book, or my understanding of the book? When a man affirms the infallibility of the Bible, he affirms the infallibility of his understanding. It appears that your faith can not be in the Bible, whatever it may teach. Your faith is only in your understanding of the Bible; and if your understanding happens to correspond exactly with the truth, you then have the truth. But if your understanding happens to be erroneous, your faith is in a falsehood. You affirm, then, that God teaches that which He does not teach; and you make your falsehood God's truth.

I want to make this plain, for here the law of outward communication is abundantly manifest. Look the world over and see how many different sects there are in Christendom: Baptists, Universalists, Presbyterians—I could not begin to name them all over to-*night. They all take the same book and learn from the same source; and yet they come to very different conclusions. You may take any one doctrine which you may think the Bible teaches—and I will immediately find you a denomination who will deny it. One says that it teaches universal salvation, and another affirms that it teaches almost as universal damnation. Each man translates it by his own understanding; and each affirms that he has infallible truth. If they would just take this simple proposition, that that which is fallible can not determine the quality of infallibility—that upon these subjects the human mind