While avowing his
personal dislike to slavery, he demonstrated that the Bible
sanctioned it. Other theologians, Catholic and Protestant, took the
same ground; and then came that tremendous rejoinder which echoed
from heart to heart throughout the Northern States: "The Bible
sanctions slavery? So much the worse for the Bible." Then was
fulfilled that old saying of Bishop Ulrich of Augsburg: "Press not
the breasts of Holy Writ too hard, lest they yield blood rather
than milk."[[368]]
Yet throughout Christendom a change in the mode of interpreting
Scripture, though absolutely necessary if its proper authority was
to be maintained, still seemed almost hopeless. Even after the
foremost scholars had taken ground in favour of it, and the most
conservative of those whose opinions were entitled to weight had
made concessions showing the old ground to be untenable, there was
fanatical opposition to any change. The _Syllabus of Errors_ put
forth by Pius IX in 1864, as well as certain other documents issued
from the Vatican, had increased the difficulties of this needed
transition; and, while the more able-minded Roman Catholic scholars
skilfully explained away the obstacles thus created, others
published works insisting upon the most extreme views as to the
verbal inspiration of the sacred books.
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