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07 - 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 six 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 Barklay. I
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  Speaker 1: promised you in my last letters to state the particulars
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  Speaker 1: in which I deemed the Christian dispensation to be an
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  Speaker 1: improvement or perfection of the law delivered at SINAI considered
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  Speaker 1: as including a system of morality. But before I come
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  Speaker 1: to this point, it is proper to remark upon the
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  Speaker 1: character of the books of the Old Testament subsequent to
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  Speaker 1: those of Moses. Some are historical, some prophetical, and some poetical.
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  Speaker 1: And two may be considered as peculiarly of the moral class,
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  Speaker 1: one being an affecting dissertation upon the vanity of human life,
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  Speaker 1: and another a collection of moral sentences under the name
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  Speaker 1: of Proverbs. I have already observed that the great, immovable
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  Speaker 1: and eternal foundation of the superiority of Scripture morals to
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  Speaker 1: all other morality was the idea of God, disclosed in
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  Speaker 1: them and only in them. The unity of God, his omnipotence,
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  Speaker 1: his righteousness, his mercy, and the infinity of his attributes
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  Speaker 1: are marked in every line of the Old Testament in
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  Speaker 1: characters which nothing less than blindness can fail to discern,
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  Speaker 1: and nothing less than fraud can misrepresent. This conception of
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  Speaker 1: God serving as a basis for the piety of his
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  Speaker 1: worshippers was, of course, incomparably more rational and more profound
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  Speaker 1: than it was possible that sentiment could be which adored
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  Speaker 1: devils for deities, or even that of philosophers like Socrates, Plato,
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  Speaker 1: and Cicero, who, with purer and more exalted ideas of
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  Speaker 1: the divine nature than the rabble of the poets, still
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  Speaker 1: considered the existence of any God at all as a
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  Speaker 1: question upon which they could form no decided opinion. You
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  Speaker 1: have seen that even Cicero believed the only solid foundation
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  Speaker 1: of all human virtue to be piety, And it was
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  Speaker 1: impossible that a piety so far transcending that of all
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  Speaker 1: all other nations should not contain in its consequences a
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  Speaker 1: system of moral virtue equally transcended. The first of the
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  Speaker 1: ten commandments was that the Jewish people should never admit
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  Speaker 1: the idea of any other God. The object of the second, third,
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  Speaker 1: and fourth was merely to impress with greater force the
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  Speaker 1: obligation of the first, and to obviate the tendencies and
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  Speaker 1: temptations which might arise to its being neglected or disregarded.
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  Speaker 1: Throughout the whole Law, the same injunctions are continually renewed.
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  Speaker 1: All the rites and ceremonies were adapted to root deeper
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  Speaker 1: into the hearts and souls of the chosen people. That
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  Speaker 1: the Lord Jehovah was to be forever the sole and
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  Speaker 1: exclusive object of love, reverence, and adoration, unbounded as his
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  Speaker 1: own nature, was the principle. Every letter of the Law,
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  Speaker 1: and the whole Bible is but a commentary upon it
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  Speaker 1: and corollary from it. The Law was given not merely
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  Speaker 1: in the form of a commandment from God, but in
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  Speaker 1: that of a covenant or compact between the Supreme Creation
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  Speaker 1: and the Jewish people. It was sanctioned by the blessing
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  Speaker 1: and the curse pronounced upon Mount Garrism and Mount Ebol
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  Speaker 1: in the presence of the whole Jewish people and strangers,
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  Speaker 1: and by the solemn acceptance of the whole people responding
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  Speaker 1: amen to every one of the curses denounced for violation
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  Speaker 1: on their part of the covenant. From that day until
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  Speaker 1: the birth of Christ, a period of about fifteen hundred
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  Speaker 1: years The historical books of the Old Testament are no
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  Speaker 1: more than a simple record of the fulfillment of the Covenant,
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  Speaker 1: in all its blessings and curses, exactly adapted to the
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  Speaker 1: fulfillment or transgression of its duties by the people. The
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  Speaker 1: nation was first governed by Joshua under the express appointment
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  Speaker 1: of God, then by a succession of judges, and afterward
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  Speaker 1: by a double line of kings, until conquered and carried
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  Speaker 1: into captivity by the kings of Assyria and Babylon, seventy
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  Speaker 1: years afterward restored to their country their temple and their laws,
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  Speaker 1: and again conquered by the Romans and ruled by their
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  Speaker 1: tributary casings and proconsuls. Yet through all their vicisitudes of fortune,
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  Speaker 1: they never complied with the duties to which they had
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  Speaker 1: bound themselves by the Covenant without being loaded with the
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  Speaker 1: blessings promised on Mount Garrison, and never departed from them
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  Speaker 1: without being afflicted with some of the curses denounced upon
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  Speaker 1: Mount Ebel. The prophetical books are themselves historical, for prophecy
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  Speaker 1: in the strictest sense is no more than history related
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  Speaker 1: before the event. But the Jewish prophets of whom there
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  Speaker 1: was a succession almost constant from the time of Joshua
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  Speaker 1: to that of Christ. Were messengers specially commissioned of God
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  Speaker 1: to warn the people of their duty, to foretell the
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  Speaker 1: punishments which awaited their transgressions, and finally to keep alive
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  Speaker 1: by uninterrupted prediction, the expectation of the Messiah, the Seed
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  Speaker 1: of Abraham, in whom all the families of the earth
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  Speaker 1: should be blessed. With this conception of the divine nature,
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  Speaker 1: so infinitely surpassing that of any other nation, with the
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  Speaker 1: system of moral virtue so indissoluble, blending as by the
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  Speaker 1: eternal constitution of things must be blended piety, with this
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  Speaker 1: uninterrupted series of signs and wonders, prophets and seers, miraculous
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  Speaker 1: interpositions of the omnipotent Creator, to preserve and vindicate the truth,
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  Speaker 1: it is lamentable. But to those who know the nature
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  Speaker 1: of man, it is not surprising to find the Jewish
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  Speaker 1: history little else than a narrative of idolatries and corruption
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  Speaker 1: of the Israelites and their monarchs. That the very people
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  Speaker 1: who had heard the voice of God from Mount Sinai
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  Speaker 1: within forty days compel Erin to make a golden calf
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  Speaker 1: and worship, that as the God who brought them out
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  Speaker 1: of the land of Egypt, That the very Solomon, the
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  Speaker 1: wisest of mankind, to whom God had twice revealed himself
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  Speaker 1: in visions, the Sublime Dictator of the Temple, the witness
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  Speaker 1: and the presence of the whole people, of the fire
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  Speaker 1: from heaven, which consumed the offerings from the altar, and
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  Speaker 1: of the glory of the Lord that filled the house,
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  Speaker 1: that he, in his old age beguiled by fair Idolatriss
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  Speaker 1: should have fallen from the worship of the ever blessed
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  Speaker 1: Jehovah to that of Astrath and Malcom, et cetera, the
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  Speaker 1: abomination of all the petty tribes of Judea, that of
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  Speaker 1: Bale and Dagon, et cetera, the Sun, moon, and planets,
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  Speaker 1: and all the host of Heaven, that the mountains and plains,
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  Speaker 1: every high place, and every grove should have swarmed with
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  Speaker 1: idols to corrupt the hearts and debase the minds of
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  Speaker 1: a people so highly favored of heaven. The elect of
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  Speaker 1: the Almighty may be among the mysteries of divine providence,
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  Speaker 1: which it is not given to mortality to explain, but
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  Speaker 1: is inadmissible only to those who presume to demand why
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  Speaker 1: it has pleased the supreme arbiter of events to create
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  Speaker 1: such a being as man observe. However, that amid the
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  Speaker 1: atrocious crimes which that nation so often polluted themselves with,
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  Speaker 1: through all their servitudes, dismemberments, captivities, and transmigrations, the divine light,
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  Speaker 1: which had been imparted exclusively to them, was never extinguished.
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  Speaker 1: The Law delivered from Sinai was preserved in all purity
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  Speaker 1: histories which attested its violations and its accomplishments were recorded
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  Speaker 1: and never lost. The writings of the prophets of David
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  Speaker 1: and Solomon were all inspired with the same idea of
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  Speaker 1: the God, had the same intertwinement of religion and morality,
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  Speaker 1: and the same anticipations of the divine Immanuel, the God
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  Speaker 1: with us. These survived all the changes of government and
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  Speaker 1: of constitutions which befell the people, the pillar of cloud
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  Speaker 1: by day and the pillar of fire by night. The
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  Speaker 1: Law and the prophets, eternal in their nature, went before them,
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  Speaker 1: unsullied and unimpaired, through all the ruins of rebellion and revolution,
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  Speaker 1: of conquest and dispersion, of war, pestilence and famine, the Assyrian,
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  Speaker 1: Babylonian and Egyptian empires, Tire and Sidon, Carthage, and all
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  Speaker 1: the other nations of antiquity rose and fell in their
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  Speaker 1: religious institutions at the same time as in their laws
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  Speaker 1: and government. It was the practice of the Romans, when
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  Speaker 1: they besieged a city to invoke its God to come
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  Speaker 1: over to them. They considered the gods as summer friends,
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  Speaker 1: ready to desert their votaries in the hour of calamity,
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  Speaker 1: or as traitors ready to sell themselves for a bribe.
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  Speaker 1: They had no higher estimate of their own than of
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  Speaker 1: the stranger deities, whom, as Gibbons said, they were always
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  Speaker 1: ready to admit to the freedom of the city. All
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  Speaker 1: the gods of the Heathens have perished with their makers.
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  Speaker 1: For where on the face of the globe could now
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  Speaker 1: be found the being who believes in any one of them?
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  Speaker 1: So much more deep and strong was the hold which
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  Speaker 1: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob took upon the
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  Speaker 1: imaginations and reason of mankind, that I might almost invert
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  Speaker 1: the question and say, where is the human being found
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  Speaker 1: believing in any God at all? And not believing in him?
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  Speaker 1: The moral character of the Old Testament, then is that
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  Speaker 1: piety to God is the foundation of all virtue, and
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  Speaker 1: that virtue is inseparable from it. But that piety without
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  Speaker 1: the practice of virtue is itself a crime, and the
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  Speaker 1: aggravation of all iniquity. Of virtues which are here recognized
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  Speaker 1: by the Heathen, are inculcated not only with more authority,
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  Speaker 1: but with more energy of argument and more eloquent persuasion
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  Speaker 1: in the Bible than in all the writings of the
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  Speaker 1: ancient moralists. In one of the apocryphal books, Wisdom of Solomon,
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  Speaker 1: the cardinal virtues are expressly named. If any man love righteousness,
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  Speaker 1: her labors are virtue, for she teacheth temperance and prudence,
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  Speaker 1: in justice and fortitude, which are such things as men
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  Speaker 1: can have nothing more profitable in this life. The Book
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  Speaker 1: of Job, whether considered as history or as an allegorical parable,
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  Speaker 1: was written to teach the lessons of patience under afflictions,
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  Speaker 1: of resignation, under divine chastisement, of undoubted confidence in the
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  Speaker 1: justice and goodness of God, under every temptation or provocation
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  Speaker 1: to depart from it. The morality of the apocryphal books
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  Speaker 1: is generally the same as that of the inspired writers,
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  Speaker 1: except that in some of them there is more stress
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  Speaker 1: laid upon the minor objects of the law in merely
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  Speaker 1: formal ordinances of police, and less continual recurrence to the
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  Speaker 1: weightier matters. The Book of Ecclesiasticus, however, contains more wisdom
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  Speaker 1: than all the sayings of the seven Grecian sages. It
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  Speaker 1: was upon this foundation that the more perfect system of
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  Speaker 1: Christian morality was to be raised. But I must defer
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  Speaker 1: the consideration to my next letter in the meantime, as
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  Speaker 1: I have urged that the scriptural idea of God is
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  Speaker 1: the foundation of all perfect virtue, and that it is
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  Speaker 1: totally different from the idea of God conceived by any
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  Speaker 1: ancient nation, I should recommend it to you, in pursuing
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  Speaker 1: the scriptures hereafter, to meditate often upon the expressions by
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  Speaker 1: which they mark the character of the deity, and to
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  Speaker 1: reflect upon the duties to Him and to your fellow mortals,
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  Speaker 1: which follow by inevitable deductions from them, that you may
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  Speaker 1: have an exact idea of the opinions of ancient Heathen
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  Speaker 1: philosophers concerning God, or rather the gods. Study Cicero's Dialogues,
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  Speaker 1: and read the abbe Ulivit's remarks on the Theology of
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  Speaker 1: the Grecian Philosophers, annexed to his translations from your affectionate father,
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  Speaker 1: John Quincy Adams, end of section six