But the way in which
common people read their Bibles is just like the way that the old
monks thought hedgehogs ate grapes. They rolled themselves (it was
said), over and over, where the grapes lay on the ground. What
fruit stuck to their spines, they carried off, and ate. So your
hedgehoggy readers roll themselves over and over their Bibles, and
declare that whatever sticks to their own spines is Scripture, and
that nothing else is. But you can only get the skins of the texts
that way. If you want their juice, you must press them in cluster.
Now, the clustered texts about the human heart, insist, as a body,
not on any inherent corruption in all hearts, but on the terrific
distinction between the bad and the good ones. "A good man, out of
the good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that which is good;
and an evil man, out of the evil treasure, bringeth forth that
which is evil." "They on the rock are they which, in an honest and
good heart, having heard the word, keep it." "Delight thyself in
the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart." "The
wicked have bent their bow, that they may privily shoot at him
that is upright in heart." And so on; they are countless, to the
same effect. And, for all of us, the question is not at all to
ascertain how much or how little corruption there is in human
nature; but to ascertain whether, out of all the mass of that
nature, we are of the sheep or the goat breed; whether we are
people of upright heart, being shot at, or people of crooked
heart, shooting.
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