(1) We must believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be of Divine Authority.
This first demand on our faith is a very large one, and can only be met by refusing to read any scientific book, to look at any geological or antiquarian collections, to study any kind of natural knowledge; we must erase from our memories all the facts we have learned about the world; we must reject purity and decency of morals; we must revert to a condition of barbarous ignorance and barbarous conduct before we can believe very many parts of the Holy Scriptures are of divine authority. Still, as we are to be imprisoned and damned for not believing this, we must try, and we had better examine a little more exactly what we are to believe on divine authority. Only some of our imposed feats of _leger-de-foi_ will be examined. Those who can accomplish these will not bungle over the rest.
It is of divine authority that god made “a firmament in the midst of the waters” and divided the waters, putting some above it and some below, and this firmament is “heaven” (Gen. i., 6—8). This heaven has windows in it which let the rain through (Gen. vii., 11), and when these windows are closed the rain stops (Gen. viii., 2). It has doors, through which the manna was rained down on the Israelites (Ps. lxxviii., 23, 24). This “sky” is very “strong,” as is indeed necessary remembering all it has to support above it, and resembles “a molten looking-glass” (Job. xxxvii., 18). Another reason why it should be very strong is that god has “set” in it the sun, moon and stars. Some of the stars are large and solid, and require a very strong setting.
My unbelieving reader, you may have some difficulty in crediting all this. You may argue that the sky is not strong at all, but is only a vast space, and that to apply the word strong to space shews gross ignorance. Divine authority says the sky _is_ strong, and if you persist in believing facts instead of the Bible, you will at least find Newgate strong and its space limited. You may argue that the stars are at very various distances, and cannot all be set in one arching roof resembling a molten looking-glass; that when it rains, the rain is due to condensation of watery vapor within our atmosphere, at a distance of at the most very few miles, and not to the opening of any windows at a distance of many billions of miles; that the firmament must be at least 5,480,490,000,000 miles away, as the stars are set in it, and the nearest fixed star is at that distance, while the furthest is beyond calculation. All these contentions of yours are facts, I admit, but they fly in the teeth of the fictions which are of divine authority; and as Mr. Justice North is armed with full power to vindicate the divine authority, you had better, if you want to keep out of gaol, give up the facts and pretend to believe in the fictions.