A Legacy to the Friends of Free Discussion: Principal Historical Facts and Personages of the Books Known as The Old and New Testament; With Remarks on the Morality of NatureOffen, Benjamin
Religion
A Legacy to the Friends of Free Discussion: Principal Historical Facts and Personages of the Books Known as The Old and New Testament; With Remarks on the Morality of Nature
Offen, Benjamin
Bible -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
We have here a sample of the prophets on each side They one and all
appear to be ready to lie, and deceive each other, in the name of the
Lord, and also, to fight for their employers. In this account, it is
also recorded that the God of truth accepted of the services of a lying
spirit, to deceive four hundred prophets, in order to get rid of a
wicked king, the whole account of which is to be found in 1 Kings,
chapter xxii.
After the tribes were separated, it was common for the prophets to
oppose each other. The kings, also, of each nation aided in the
destruction of the prophets, and were worshippers of strange gods. And
yet it is recorded, that Jehovah chose Jeroboam to be king over
Israel,—the very man who introduced the worship of idols, to the entire
exclusion of the worship of the God of Abram! This choice of Jehovah
laid the foundation of scenes of bloodshed too horrid to be ascribed to
the all-wise Author of Nature. It could not have been worse, had the
Devil been the chooser.
For years after the Israelites became two distinct nations, we read of
little else than quarrels and bloodshed; and the prophets of Judah
(called the prophets of Jehovah) were much worse than those called false
prophets. This can be easily accounted for, as the Jewish religion was
then the most intolerant of any on earth. The Kings of Judah gave
orders, in the name of the Lord, to destroy all the heathen, as the
enemies of Jehovah. The prophets followed up the same practice; at the
same time, the prophets of the heathen gods were less cruel, and,
morally speaking, much better men. According to what is recorded,
whenever power was in the hands of the Kings of Judah, or their
prophets, no mercy was shown to the opposite party; and as to prophets,
they seemed to spring up like mushrooms, for it was often inquired by
kings, is there not a man of God here?
A few remarks on the prophets of those times may be here made. Elijah
seems to have had delegated to him almost unlimited power; for lo! he,
under pretence of having orders from Jehovah, anointed kings agreeably
to his pretended orders. He then foretold what the Lord intended should
be done to certain kings and their families. Those kings, then, thus
anointed by the authority of Elijah, received orders to destroy such and
such families; so that after Jehovah had separated the Israelites into
two kingdoms by setting up Jeroboam, nothing but cruelty and murder
followed, in consequence of the Lord’s making so bad a choice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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