Bibliolatrical

May we not, without any ecclesiastic or bibliolatrical evasion, assert—that the Spirit, which prompted and potenziated the minds of the Prophets and Psalmists, provided by a series of providential events for the spiritual interpretation & application of their words—now by rendering the primary purpose obsolete, gone-by, and now by the non-fulfilment of the predictions in the sense first understood by the Contemporaries of the inspired Men—while yet the veneration and esteem of the Writings themselves not only were not diminished by this—but greatly, very greatly increased— / Nay, the true religious Awe & Value of these Books, the more than life-valuing of them, may be said to have commenced from the time that the apparent falsification of their promises, the failure of their literal sense, became evident.

A Frenchman, whose blood is free, one may conjecture, from any taint of that bibliolatrical virus which makes us Protestants such purblind students of the Bible, gives us, in the mouth of one of his dramatis personæ, the following estimate of the God of Israel: “Le Dieu de la Bible est un vieux Juif maniaque et monomane, un fou furieux, qui passe son temps à gronder, menacer, hurler comme un loup enragé, delirer tout seul, enfermé dans son nuage.[…]”

As mentioned above, preaching must be biblical, but not bibliolatrical!

It is a statement, not a criticism, that the whole conception of religion seems to have been too narrowly individualistic, sabbatarian, bibliolatrical and other-worldly.