80 OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE GENUINESS OF

C. Is there no difference between taking a little wine for medicine, as St. Paul advises Timothy to do, and being a drunkard? We Christians, even though many of us are total abstainers, are nowhere forbidden ever to taste wine, as you Muhammadans are. Yet 1 Cor. vi. 10 shows how great a crime we are bound to consider drunkenness to be, while the maximum punishment prescribed by Muslim law for that offence is scourging. Hence you evidently consider it a less crime than we do, while you condemn as wrong what is not in itself a sin1.

58. M. In 2 Cor. xi. 17 Paul expressly disclaims inspiration for himself, and yet you include his epistles in the New Testament as part of the Word of God.

C. In and for that special passage he disclaims the highest kind of inspiration, but that does not amount to a denial of his writing even that passage under Divine guidance, to which his being called to the Apostolate (1 Cor. i. 1; ix. 1; 2 Cor. i. I, &c.) gave him a claim. The difficulty in your mind arises from your confounding your idea of inspiration with ours. (Vide Chapter IV, initio.)

59. M. In Matt. v. 17 Christ declares that He did not come to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfil them. In contrast to this, in Heb. vii. 18, it is written, "There is a disannulling of a foregoing commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness."

1 Rev. W. A. Rice.
THE BIBLE AS IT NOW EXISTS 81

C. The Sermon on the Mount, from which you quote, gives example after example to show that Christ fulfilled and did not destroy the Law and the Prophets, both of which we Christians still read and reverence 1. The other passage shows that only certain outward and temporary enactments had been done away with, because they had fulfilled their purpose and were being perverted by the Jews so as to be a hindrance instead of a help to men. For example, sacrifices were enjoined under the Law of Moses; but as these were useful only as bearing witness to the need of the death of Christ as the One true Sacrifice, they were no longer of any avail after His death. Just in the same way a cheque is of value until it is honoured; after that it may be useful as a proof that it has been paid, but it has no monetary value. Yet we do not say that the bank annuls it, but honours it, that is, pays it. We may also say that the bank in one sense annuls it, though not in another2.

60. M. Another contradiction is found in what

1 We show our reverence for Law, Prophets, and Psalms by reading passages from them in our services. The Muslims talk a great deal about their reverence for the Former Books, but how totally do they fail to show it in any way of this sort! (The Bishop of Lahore.)
2 Vide §§ 71, 72. Moreover "the Law of Moses was not of universal application. It was of the nature of a covenant between certain parties (God and the Hebrew nation), a sort of subcontract within the Abrahamic covenant. Again, principles are eternal, while details of the application of these principles may differ under different circumstances." (Mr. Harding.)