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06 - Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son, on the Bible and Its Teachings by John Quincy Adams · Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son, on the Bible and Its Teachings

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  Speaker 1: Section five of Letters of John Quincy Adams to his
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  Speaker 1: son on the Bible and its teachings. This LibriVox recording
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  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Read by Dale Barclay, Letter five.
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  Speaker 1: In the promise with which my last letter to you
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  Speaker 1: upon the Bible was concluded, I undertook a task from
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  Speaker 1: the performance of which I have been hitherto deterred by
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  Speaker 1: its very magnitude and importance. The more I reflected upon
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  Speaker 1: the subject, the more sensibly did I feel my incompetency
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  Speaker 1: to do it justice, And by a weakness too common
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  Speaker 1: in the world, from the apprehension of inability to accomplish
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  Speaker 1: as much as I ought, I have hitherto been withheld
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  Speaker 1: from the attempt to accomplish anything at all. Thus more
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  Speaker 1: than a year has elapsed, leaving me still burdened with
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  Speaker 1: the load of my promise, and in now undertaking to
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  Speaker 1: discharge it, I must promise that you are only to
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  Speaker 1: expect the desultory and indigested thoughts which I have not
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  Speaker 1: the means of combining into a regular and systematic work.
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  Speaker 1: I shall not entangle myself in the controversy which has
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  Speaker 1: sometimes been discussed with a temper not very congenial to
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  Speaker 1: either the nature of the question itself or the undoubted
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  Speaker 1: principles of Christianity. Whether the Bible, like all other systems
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  Speaker 1: of morality, lays the ultimate basis of all human duties
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  Speaker 1: in self love, or whether it enjoins duties on the
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  Speaker 1: principle of perfect and disinterested benevolence. Whether the obligations are
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  Speaker 1: sanctioned by a promise of reward or a menace of punishment,
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  Speaker 1: the ultimate motive for its fulfillment may justly be attributed
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  Speaker 1: to selfish considerations. But if obedience to the will of
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  Speaker 1: God be the universal and only foundation of all moral duty,
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  Speaker 1: special injunctions may be binding upon the consciences of men,
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  Speaker 1: although their performance should not be secured either by the
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  Speaker 1: impulse of hope or fear. The law given from Sinai
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  Speaker 1: was a civil and municipal as well as a moral
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  Speaker 1: and religious code. It contained many statutes adapted to that
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  Speaker 1: time only, and to the particular circumstances of the nation
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  Speaker 1: to whom it was given. They could of course be
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  Speaker 1: binding upon them, and only upon them, until abrogated by
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  Speaker 1: the same authority which enacted them, as they afterward were
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  Speaker 1: by the Christian dispensation. But many others were of universal application,
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  Speaker 1: laws essential to the existence of men and society, and
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  Speaker 1: most of which have been enacted by every nation which
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  Speaker 1: ever professed any code of laws. But the levitical was
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  Speaker 1: given by God himself. It extended to a great variety
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  Speaker 1: of objects of infinite importance to the welfare of men,
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  Speaker 1: but which could not come within the reach of human legislation.
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  Speaker 1: It combined the temporal and spiritual authorities together and regulated
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  Speaker 1: not only the actions, but the passions of those to
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  Speaker 1: whom it was given. Human legislators can undertake only to
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  Speaker 1: prescribe the actions of men. They acknowledged their inability to
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  Speaker 1: govern and direct the sentiments of the heart. The very
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  Speaker 1: last aisles at a rule of civil conduct, not of
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  Speaker 1: internal principles. And there is no crime in the power
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  Speaker 1: of an individual to perpetrate which he may not design, project,
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  Speaker 1: and fully intend without incurring guilt in the eye of
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  Speaker 1: human law. It is one of the greatest marks of
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  Speaker 1: divine favor bestowed upon the children of Israel that the
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  Speaker 1: legislator gave them rules not only of action, but for
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  Speaker 1: the government of the heart. There were occasionally a few short,
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  Speaker 1: sententious principles of morality issued from the oracles of Greece
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  Speaker 1: among them, and undoubtedly the most excellent of them was
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  Speaker 1: that of self Knowledge, which one of the purest moralists
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  Speaker 1: and finest poets of Rome expressly says came from heaven.
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  Speaker 1: But if you would remark the distinguishing characteristics between true
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  Speaker 1: and false religion, compare the manner in which the Ten
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  Speaker 1: Commandments were proclaimed by the voice of the Almighty God
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  Speaker 1: from Mount Sinai, with thunder and lightning and earthquake by
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  Speaker 1: the sound of the trumpet, and in the hearing of
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  Speaker 1: six thousand souls, with the studied secrecy and mystery and
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  Speaker 1: mummery with which the Delphic and other oracles of the
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  Speaker 1: Grecian gods were delivered. The miraculous interpositions of divine power
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  Speaker 1: recorded in every part of the Bible are invariably marked
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  Speaker 1: with grandeur and sublimity worthy of the creator of the world,
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  Speaker 1: and before which the gods of Homer, not accepting his Jupiter,
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  Speaker 1: dwindle into the most contemptible pigmies. But on no occasion
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  Speaker 1: was the manifestation of the deity so solemn, so awful,
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  Speaker 1: so calculated to make indelible impressions upon the imaginations and
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  Speaker 1: souls of the mortals, to whom he revealed himself as
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  Speaker 1: when he appeared in the character of their lawgiver. The
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  Speaker 1: law thus dispensed was, however, imperfect. It was destined to
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  Speaker 1: be partly suspended and improved into absolute perfection many ages
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  Speaker 1: afterward by the appearance of Jesus Christ upon earth. But
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  Speaker 1: to judge of its excellence as a system of law,
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  Speaker 1: it must be compared with human codes, which existed or
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  Speaker 1: were promulgated at nearly the same age of the world
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  Speaker 1: and other nations. Remember that the law was given one thousand,
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  Speaker 1: four hundred ninety years before Christ was born. At the time,
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  Speaker 1: the Assyrian and Egyptian monarchies existed, but of their government
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  Speaker 1: and laws we know scarcely anything save what is collected
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  Speaker 1: from the Bible of the Phrygian, Lydian and Trojan states
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  Speaker 1: at the same period. Little more is known. The President Gorge,
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  Speaker 1: in a very elaborate and ingenious work on the origin
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  Speaker 1: of letters, arts and sciences among the ancient nations, says
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  Speaker 1: that the maxims the civil and political laws of these
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  Speaker 1: people are absolutely unknown, that not even an idea of
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  Speaker 1: them can be formed. With the single exception of the
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  Speaker 1: Lydians of whom Herodotus asserts that their laws were the
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  Speaker 1: same as the Greeks. The same author contrasts the total
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  Speaker 1: darkness and oblivion into which all the institution of these
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  Speaker 1: mighty empires have fallen with the fullness and clearness and
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  Speaker 1: admirable composition of the Hebrew Code, which is not only
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  Speaker 1: descended to us entire but still continues the national code
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  Speaker 1: of the Jews, scattered as they are over the whole
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  Speaker 1: face of the earth, and enters so largely into the
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  Speaker 1: legislation of almost every civilized nation upon the globe. He
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  Speaker 1: observes that these laws have been prescribed by God himself.
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  Speaker 1: The merely human laws of other contemporary nations cannot bear
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  Speaker 1: any comparison with them. But my motive informing the comparison
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  Speaker 1: is to present to your reflections as a proof, and
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  Speaker 1: to my mind, a very strong proof, of the reality
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  Speaker 1: of their divine origin. For how is it that the
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  Speaker 1: whole system of government and administration, the municipal, political, ecclesiastical, military,
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  Speaker 1: and moral laws and institutions which bound in society the
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  Speaker 1: numberless myriads of human beings who formed, for many successive ages,
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  Speaker 1: the stupendous monarchies of Africa and Asia should have perished
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  Speaker 1: entirely and been obliterated from the memory of mankind, while
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  Speaker 1: the laws of a paltry tribe of shepherds, characterized by
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  Speaker 1: Tacitus and the sneering infidelity of Gibbon as the most
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  Speaker 1: despised portion of their slaves, should not only have survived
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  Speaker 1: the wreck of those empires, but remain to this day
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  Speaker 1: rules of faith and practice to every enlightened nation of
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  Speaker 1: the world, and perishable only with it. The reason is obvious.
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  Speaker 1: It is their intrinsic excellence which has preserved them from
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  Speaker 1: the destruction which befalls all the works of mortal man.
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  Speaker 1: The precepts of the Decalogue alone, says Gorgee, disclose more
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  Speaker 1: sublime truths, more maxims essentially suited to the happiness of man,
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  Speaker 1: than all the writings of profane antiquity put together can furnish.
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  Speaker 1: The more you meditate on the Laws of Moses, the
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  Speaker 1: more striking and brighter does their wisdom appear. It would
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  Speaker 1: be a laborious, but not an unprofitable investigation to reduce
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  Speaker 1: into a regular classification like that of the institutes of
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  Speaker 1: Justinian or the commentaries of Blackstone. The whole Code of
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  Speaker 1: Moses which embraces not only the ordinary subjects of legislation,
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  Speaker 1: together with the principles of religion and morality, but laws
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  Speaker 1: of ecclesiastical directions concerning the minutest actions and dress of individuals. This, however,
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  Speaker 1: would lead me too far from my present purpose, which
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  Speaker 1: is merely to consider the Bible as a system of morality.
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  Speaker 1: I shall therefore notice those parts of the law which
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  Speaker 1: may be referred particularly to that class, and at present
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  Speaker 1: must confine myself to a few remarks upon the Decalogue itself, which,
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  Speaker 1: having been spoken by the Voice and twice written upon
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  Speaker 1: the stone tablets by the finger of God, may be
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  Speaker 1: considered as the foundation of the whole system of the
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  Speaker 1: Ten Commandments, emphatically so called for the extraordinary and miraculous
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  Speaker 1: distinction by which they were promulgated. The first four amendments
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  Speaker 1: are religious laws, the fifth and tenth are properly and
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  Speaker 1: peculiarly moral and domestic rules. The other four are of
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  Speaker 1: the criminal department of municipal laws. The Unity of the
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  Speaker 1: God had the prohibition of making graven images to worship,
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  Speaker 1: that of taking lightly or in vain, as the English
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  Speaker 1: translation expresses it, the name of the deity and the
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  Speaker 1: injunction to observe the Sabbath as a day sanctified and
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  Speaker 1: set apart for His worship. Were all intended to inculcate
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  Speaker 1: the reverence for the one, only and True God, that
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  Speaker 1: profound and penetrating sentiment of piety, which in a former
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  Speaker 1: letter I urged as the great and only immovable foundation
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  Speaker 1: of all human virtue. Next to the duties toward the Creator,
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  Speaker 1: that of honoring the earthly parent is enjoined. It is
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  Speaker 1: to them that every individual owes the greatest obligations, and
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  Speaker 1: to them that he is consequently bound by the first
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  Speaker 1: and strongest of all earthly ties. The following commands applying
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  Speaker 1: to the relations between man and his fellow mortals are
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  Speaker 1: all negative, as their application was universal to every human being.
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  Speaker 1: It was not required that any positive acts of beneficence
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  Speaker 1: toward them should be performed, but only to abstain from
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  Speaker 1: wronging them, either first in their persons, second in their property,
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  Speaker 1: third in their conjugal rights, fourth in their good name,
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  Speaker 1: after which all the essential enjoyments of life being thus
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  Speaker 1: guarded from voluntary injury. The tenth and closing commandment goes
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  Speaker 1: to the very source of all human actions, the heart
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  Speaker 1: and positively forbids all those desires which first prompt and
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  Speaker 1: lead to every transgression upon the property and right of
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  Speaker 1: our fellow creatures. Vain indeed, would be the search among
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  Speaker 1: the writings of profane antiquity, not merely of that remote antiquity,
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  Speaker 1: but even in the most refined and philosophical ages of
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  Speaker 1: Greece and Rome, to find so broad, so complete, and
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  Speaker 1: so solid a basis for morality as this Decalogue lays down.
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  Speaker 1: Yet I have said it was imperfect. Its sanctions, its rewards,
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  Speaker 1: its punishments, had reference only to present life, and it
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  Speaker 1: had no injunctions of positive beneficence toward our neighbors. Of these,
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  Speaker 1: the law was not entirely destitute in its other parts.
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  Speaker 1: But both in this respect and in the other, it
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  Speaker 1: was to be perfected by him who brought life in
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  Speaker 1: immortality to light in the Gospel, upon which subject you
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  Speaker 1: shall hear more from your affectionate father, John Quincy Adams,
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  Speaker 1: end of section five.