Weekly national intelligencer., 1864-10-06
A BIBLICAL INQUIRY.

reflections on certain "views" put forth by the
Boston Recorder, professedly religious paper, in
warning against the Changer" (to which it be-
lieves the American people are exposed " from
selfish desires for peace y Of being too ready to
take the Divine prerogatve of forgiveness into our
own hand, as if we were more mercful than God,
and pardon those dreadful offenders whom He in
mercy to posterity has delivered to us to punish
and destroy" In support of this comfortable
theory of civil duty the Recorder cited as Giles
son which American Christians should not forget
at such crisis as this, the example of Saul, who
having been commanded by the voice Of the Lord,
speaking through Samuel, the prophe. to ego and
smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they
have, and spare them not but slay both man and
woman, infant and sucking, OK and sheep, camel
and ass" had been "rejeoted from being king
over Israel" because he took Agsg, the king of
the Amalekites, alive, instead of killing him, and
because he allowed the soldiers of the Jewish army
to "spare the best Of the sheep and oxen," under
the pretence Of reserving them for 'sacrifce unto
the Lord" instead Of destroying them utterly, ac-
cording to the literal terms of the commission he
uau received from Jnc Almighty.
We ventured very deferentially to intimate to
the editors Of the Recorder, that, as this terrible
decree in the case of Amalek came directly from
Heaven and was systematically communicated to
the anointed interpreters of the Divine counsels-
as without this direct mandate from the Judge Of
all the earth no such war of utter determination
would have been known as an imperative duty-it
was to be presumed that the Boston Recorder was
equally inspired with Samuel the prophet when it
thus undertook to utter its admonions to the Gov
ernment and people of the United States against the
great sin and wickedne,s of daring to take the d.
vine prerogative of forgiveness into our hands, as if
we were more merciful than God" And we added
the expression of our hope that it would conde-
scend to inform us at whose hands it received the
prophetic conservation 10 virtue Of which it thus
assumed right to "deal damnation round the
land as without such divine authority its Ian
guage must seem to pious minds little better than
basphemy."
In its weekly number of Friday last the Re-
corder taxes US with attempting ia ferocious as
saut" on its theory of religious duty at this crisis
but expresses the opinion that our assault fails of
all force" because we have wholly mistaken it's in
tent and it's language. We should be very glad,
for the sake Of the Recorder, to think 50, though
we should exceedingly regret, for our own sake,
that we had been unfort unate as not properly to
apprehend its intent interpret its language. But
on either suppostion, we take pleasure in placing
before our readers the explanation which our re-
lgious contemporary gives of its Scripture prece-
dents After reciting portion of the language it
had used, it says:
"Agan we ask, were not the cases of Saul and Jossh
Intended to have any influence upon and upon rulers 10
these last mes7 Were they not recorded warnings
against certain dangers though not examples for
literal and blind invtation7 Are we, upon pain of being
called boodymnded, aud of being accused of arroeat
ing to ourselves prophetic consecraton make use
of Old Testament examples OF which the Apostle says
Now all these things happened unto them for examples
and they written for our admonton upon whom the
ends Of the world are comet"
If the respected editors of the Recorder will
recur to the observations on which they animadyert
with SO much sensibility they will find that we at
tempted to lay no restriction on their citation of
Old Testament examples, though we expressed
some curiosity to know by what internal llumina-
tion they were able to decide that only examples
of particular class appropriate to our present
situation. To this effect we wrote:
CAS- the Recorder says this example of Joash is equally
with the OF Saul, lesson which American Christians
should neglect at such crisis this beg respect
fully to ask when and where it received the spirit and
power of Elisha virtue of which it
that this precedent s appropriate to times and land
For presume the editors Of the Recorder sufficient
y familiar with their Bibles to know that another oc
cason when the Syrans while devastating Palestine were
completely delivered into the hands of the King Of Israel
and when the King anxious to smte them the pro-
phet answered. thou shalt smte them and command
ed to bread and water before them that they may eat
and drink and to their master And il s written that
the King Of Israel prepared great provision for them and
when they had eaten and drunk he sent them, and they
went TO their MASTER SO the bands of Syria adds the
sacred chronicer, came to the land Of Israel
Will the Recorder be good enough to inform by what
superior illumination it has come to know that this Old
Testament precedent Tin which the prophet it would |
SEEM lent countenance to the divine attribute Of
forgiveness even when exercised by men) s not profit
able for doctrine for reproo for correction for
tion in righteousness at the present time7"
We regret that on these points the Recorder
vouchsafcs us no information whatever.
As our sole object in referring to the observa-
tions of the Recorder was to put in humble plea
for one of the Divine attributes which our contem-
porary thinks it would be great sin and wicked
ness for American Christians to initiate, we beg to
refer the editors of the Recorder to another Old
Testament precedent which they seem to have over