Show q theological absurdities THE baptist which as its ito name me indicates takes the position of a religious instructor commenting on popular objections to the biblical story about jonah and the whale remarks if it had pleased god so BO to order it would have been entirely possible even for an oyster to swallow jonah quite as easy as for jonah to have swallowed an oyster A miracle is a miracle and what 1 roily folly it is to be quibbling and haggling a bout about the relative difficulty of mira miracles cleal one is as easy for the lord as another 01 it is just such religious I 1 instruction 11 and theological argument as this that helps to make infidels if the ac of biblical religion requires the abrogation of reason and the abolition of common sense in these days of little faith it may be expected that such religion will fall into general contempt but true religion requires no such stultification of mans manis man Is rational powers on the contrary it stimulates them and demands their proper exercise the idea that any power in the universe could make an oyster swallow a man as easily as a man can swallow an oyster is so absurd that it is biffi cult to abstain from invective in treating it As well might it be claimed that deity could cause two and two to make five or a substance to exist and not exist at the same instant as to assert such pon nonsense sense as the baptist sets forth as a divine possibility bible miracles so called are not violations of natural laws as some I 1 eo ald imagine they denote the exercise of power that is uncommon but they are all accountable on a common sense hense theory the story told in the book of JOD jonah ah a narration facts as it seems reems to be or as some students maintain only a religious apologue designed to illustrate a principle like the para tiles hies of the savior is not difficult of belief or in contradiction to reason it says saye now the lord had prepared a great fish to wallow up jonah it does doea not describe the fish except that it was 11 great greatus gre atAs ilas to jonah jonass is condition from the time he entered the fish to the time when he called upon the lord and was vomited up again it might have been cataleptic or such as to be of all animation that would be much less jew marvelous than the authenticated accounts of east buried and brought forth alive after long periods of interment we do not believe that any of the remarkable occurrences narrated in holy writ were violations of natural laws but manifestations of power on principles which while above present common comprehension are strictly in conformity to laws MS as truly natural as thome with which we are familiar that with god all thing are poasi me is true within the bounds of rewn reason that to is to say with him all possible things are possible cimpoesi bili buigues ties are not things but fictions to attempt to promote belief in manifest absurdities only serves to defeat the intended object it weakens faith and often destroys it goti god works through and by means of those universal laws which he hae bas institute and will do nothing inconsistent with himself that mortals cannot always comprehend his works does not place them beyond the realms of reason nor prove that they are contrary to nature and io in the light of the developments of modern times the terms incredible and should be used with the greatest caution |