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by another falsehood, alleging that she had been obliged by David to do so on peril
of her life.
Although we are in no wise concerned to defend Michal, and in general utterly
repudiate, as derogatory to Holy Scripture, all attempts to explain away the apparent
wrong-doing of Biblical personages, this instance requires a few words of plain
statement. First, it is most important to observe, that Holy Scripture, with a
truthfulness which is one of its best evidences, simply relates events, whoever were
the actors, and whatever their moral character. We are somehow prone to imagine
that Holy Scripture approves all that it records, at least in the case of its worthies -
unless, indeed, the opposite be expressly stated. Nothing could be more fallacious
than such an inference. Much is told in the Bible, even in connection with Old
Testament saints, on which no comment is made, save that of the retribution which,
in the course of God's providence, surely follows all wrong-doing. And here we
challenge any instance of sin which is not followed by failure, sorrow, and
punishment. It had been so in the case of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob; and it was
so in that of David, whose every attempt to screen himself by untruthfulness ended
in failure and sorrow. Holy Scripture never conceals wrong-doing - least of all seeks
to palliate it. In this respect there is the most significant contrast between the Bible
and its earliest (even pre-Christian) comments. Those only who are acquainted with
this literature know with what marvelous ingenuity Rabbinical commentaries
uniformly try, not only to palliate wrong on the part of Biblical heroes, but by some
turn or alteration in the expression, or suggestion of motives, to present it as actually
right. But we must go a step further. He who fails to recognize the gradual
development of God's teaching, and regards the earlier periods in the history of
God's kingdom as on exactly the same level as the New Testament, not only most
seriously mistakes fundamental facts and principles, but misses the entire meaning
of the preparatory dispensation. The Old Testament never places truth, right, or duty
on any lower basis than the New. But while it does not lower, it does not unfold in
all their fullness the principles which it lays down. Rather does it adapt the
application of truths, the exposition of rights, and the unfolding of duties, to the
varying capacities of each age and stage. And this from the necessity of the case, in
highest wisdom, in greatest mercy, and in the interest of the truth itself. The
principle: "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought
as a child," applies to the relation between the Old and the New Testament
standpoint, as well as to all spiritual and even intellectual progress. The child is
ignorant of all the bearings of what he learns; the beginner of the full meaning and
application of the axioms and propositions which he is taught. Had it been otherwise
in spiritual knowledge, its acquisition would have been simply impossible.
Here also we have to distinguish between what God sanctioned and that with which
He bore on account of the hardness of the heart of those who had not yet been
(^)