Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Simon Peter Long - From the Lutheran Librarian

The Lutheran Librarian


Long’s series of 7 sermons, “The Way Made Plain”. This section is particularly insightful:
Question No. 5. Cannot an infidel be a good man?
Answer: Let us distinguish very closely between certain terms often misquoted. An atheist is a man who denies the existence of God; an infidel acknowledges the existence of God but denies that the Bible is His Word, or that Jesus Christ is the only Savior. The question therefore is simply this: Can a man deny that the Bible is God’s Word and that Jesus is the Savior, and be a good man? John E——— of ————, who himself was a great infidel and afterwards was converted, used to walk around, and every opportunity he had, he laid his hand upon his heart and said, “Here is the only argument against the Bible – a bad heart.”
Hume was a noted infidel, but he advised people to commit suicide, and to commit adultery. Voltaire and Paine were noted infidels, both of them were low down rakes. Voltaire even went so far as to hire D’Alembert to lie in court. I never in all my life met a man in a Christian land boasting of infidelity that was a good man. If I were to abuse my father and mother, surely you would say I am a bad man. An infidel abuses his Father in heaven. Can he be good? Have you ever noticed that just as soon as a man is a bad man he doesn’t want anything to do with the Bible, and just as soon as he is a good man he loves the old Book? I used to sit up in the hay-mow and read certain books, but I never read the Bible up there. Whenever mother found me in the hay-mow reading a book she made up her mind it was a bad one. The policemen of this country have never yet discovered a real bad rogue with a Bible in his satchel; they have found bottles there. The very fact therefore that a bad man hates the Bible, and a good man loves it, is an answer to the question.