Other passages again promise peace of mind.  “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is staid on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee” (Isaiah xxvi, 3).  “Let him take hold of my strength that he may make peace with me” (Isaiah xxvii, 5).  St. Paul speaks of “The God of Peace” in many passages, e.g., Rom. xv, 33; 2 Cor. xiii, 11; 1 Thess. v, 23, and Hebr. xiii, 20; and Jesus, in his final discourse recorded in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of St. John’s Gospel, lays peculiar stress on the gift of Peace.

And lastly there are many passages which promise the overcoming of death itself; as for instance Job xix, 25-27; John viii, 51, and x, 28, and xi, 25 and 26; Hebr. ii, 14 and 15; 1 Cor. xv, 50-57; 2 Tim. i, 10; Rom. vi, 23 ("The gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ, our Lord").

“God commanded the blessing, even Life for evermore” (Ps. cxxxiii, 3).

Now I hope the reader will take the trouble to look up the texts to which I have referred, and not be lazy.  I am sure he would do so if he were promised a ten pound note or a fifty dollar bill for his pains, and if these promises are not all bosh, there is something worth a good deal more to be got by studying them.  Just run through the list:  health, wealth, peace of mind, safety, creative power, and eternal life.  You would be willing to pay a good premium to an Insurance Office that could guarantee you all these.  Well, there is a Company that does this without paying any premium, and its name is “God and Co., Unlimited”; the only condition, is that you yourself have to take the part of “Co.” and it is not a sleeping partnership, but a wide-awake one!

So I hope you will take the trouble to look up the texts; but at the same time you must remember that the reading of single texts is not sufficient.  If you take any isolated phrase you choose, without reference to the rest of the Book, there is no nonsense you cannot make out of the Bible.  You would not be allowed to do that sort of thing in a Court of Law.  When a document is produced in evidence, the meaning of the words used in it are very carefully construed, not only in reference to the particular clause in which they occur, but also with reference to the intention of the document as a whole, and to the circumstances under which they were written.  The same word may mean very different things in different connections; for instance I remember two reported cases in one of which the word “Spanish” meant a certain sort of leather, and in the other a kind of material used in brewing; and in like manner particular texts are to be interpreted in accordance with the gist of the Bible as a whole.