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Untitled Article
ckity , that as he was to be a teacher of Christianity to others he should make himself thoroughly acquainted with the sacred records , and know the foundation and authority on which they
stood ; for this undertaking he was well prepared by considerable learning , and a sound judgment . The fruits of this inquiry were a perfect satisfaction in his own mind that several of the books of the New Ttffiam ent were spurious , and that from these very books the fjplds and articles of the orthodox apostate church were chiefly framed . Finding the historical testimony so unsatisfactory , and seeing
the spread of infidelity on the one hand , whilst the great bulk of professing Christians were so involved in ignorance and superstition on the other , I was satisfied , " says Mr . E . ** that if there was a supernatural revelation from the Deity , it
required supernatural evidence of its truth ; and this led me to a diligent study of the Christian prophecies , which convinced me of the divine inspiration of the genuine Scriptures ; and it was this enabled me to separate the wheat from the chaff , and by the predicted history of the Christian church from the age of the apostles down to the present time , the prophecies became to me
a standing miraculous evidence for their truth ; which produced as strong a conviction upon my mind of the divine mission of Jesus as could be produced on th ^ Minds of his first disciples . The utmost amount of historic evidence and human opinions can be only a preponderance of probabilities ; but this was the
testimony of Jesus , which is the spirit of prophec y * " With a deep impression upon his mind that the knowledge of Christianity , when rightly understood and freed from the corruptions with which it had been debased , outweighed in value every other attainment in knowledge ; because it was pre-eminently . calculated tQ make mankind wiser , better , and happier ; he was
desirous , from the great satisfaction it afforded himself , to communicate to others the fruits of his labour and enquiries , and after some years of careful investigation , and a review of his opinions , with the arguments on which they were founded , he published his Dissonance of the Four Gospels , shewing which
appeared to him to be the genuine and which the spurious books of the New Testament , endeavouring thereby to display Christianity in its native simplicity , by which it \ s as intelligible now to the poor and humble as it was when taught by Jesus and his Apostles to the Jewish and Gentile multitude ; and it will be found that the end of all his writings was to promote this great and benevolent object . The ignorance and malevolence of soipe who have been offended with his writings , have represented him as a deist and a disguised opponent of the Christian Revelation , than vvhicU
Untitled Article
Rev * Edward Evanson , A . M + 61
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1806, page 61, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1721/page/5/
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