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| 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.
