Abraham was upon the point of accomplishing an act which, even in the presence of virtuous motives and a divine command, has been forbidden, and is held accursed by the subsequent Revelation and the sentiments of all whom it has enlightened. At this moment the hand of Abraham is stayed, and patriarchal religion is saved from the antagonism of a conflict between the rigour of the Hebrew law and the merciful dispensation of the Gospel. The sentiment which Dean Stanley expresses has my full concurrence; but I go still further, and maintain that there is in the pathetic narrative of Abraham's sacrifice something more than he points out. {113} This interposition of God in order to arrest the very act which he has required is in accord with the general doctrine of the Bible, expressly condemning human sacrifices; [Footnote 25] but Abraham's as well as several other examples prove how such sacrifices continued to exist in the ferocious traditions and manners, not only of several nations of Semitic origin, but even of the Hebrews themselves. God's intent is to try Abraham, and he pauses as soon as Abraham's obedience to the divine order is beyond doubt. Abraham does not hesitate to execute the divine command; he expresses no surprise at it. The sacrifice of Isaac is prepared, and very nearly consummated, as an event almost of course. Here we have man in the grossest and blindest condition of barbarism, in the presence of God, in whom as sovereign he believes, and whose sovereignty it is not his purpose to dispute. [Footnote 25: Leviticus xviii. 21; Deuteronomy xii. 31; Ezekiel xx. 26. This question is treated and conclusively solved in the Theologische Encyclopedie of Herzog, art. Sacrifice, vol. x. p. 621.] {114} It would be easy for me to multiply these examples, and to show, in many other passages of the Bible, the following fundamental characteristic of Biblical History: the thought and word of man, although constantly in presence of the divine law and of the divine action, yet in contact and contrast with the thought and word of God. I prefer seeking for proofs in support of my conviction in a comparison of the Old and New Testaments, and in the light which Christianity sheds upon the Hebrew Revelation, which it does not contradict, but to which it applies a movement of progress.