For it is the Bible which has revealed that truth
to us, in its very beginning and outset, that we might have, from
the first, clear and sound notions concerning man and God. The
Bible, I say; for the sacred books of the heathen say, most of them,
nothing thereof.
Man has, in all ages, been tempted, when he looks at his own
wickedness and folly, not only to despise himself--which he has good
reason enough to do--but to despise his own human nature, and to cry
to God, 'Why hast thou made me thus?' He has cursed his own human
nature. He has said, 'Surely man is most miserable of all the
beasts of the field.' He has said, 'I must get rid of my human
nature--I must give up wife, family, human life of all kinds, I must
go into the deserts and the forests, and there try to forget that I
am a man, and become a mere spirit or angel.' So said the Buddhists
of Asia, the deepest thinkers concerning man and God of all the
heathens, and so have many said since their time. But so does the
Bible not say. It starts by telling us that man is made in God's
likeness, and that therefore his human nature is originally and in
itself not a bad, but a perfectly good thing.
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