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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
tion , he must have foreseen would
be completely frustrated by a speedy detection of his true character . Surely he could not promise himself any posthumous fame , which could be an object of desire , from involving his too credulous followers in like
sufferings and disgrace with himself , which would be the consequence of their adhering to him , if he could have thought it likely , that they would be so weak as still to
avow themselves his disciples after they had found him to have been an unprincipled deceiver . If in the hour of safety and prosperity he could have felt any secret pleasure from observing his influence
over the minds of ignorant and deluded people , that pleasure could be no longer enjoyed , when the scene before him was overcast with the deepest gloom , and the
imposture hitherto carried on with some success , was going without farther delay to meet its recompence in public derision , mockery , torture and death . To have worn
the ma * sk any longer in such a situation would have betrayed a degree of madness or stupidity inconsistent with the supposition of his having been able , uniformly
and at all times preceding that period , to cover his hypocrisy with a vejl too thick to be seen through by the keenest eye of the most suspicious and watchful adversary .
But once moiv were it possible to suppose , that an impostor , in opposition t <* all known principles of human conduct , could still persist in carrying on a cheat even when he saw death in the
most ternhc form hastily advancing towards him a ^ d just ready to seize him as hj . s pray , yet what an alruost miraculous stfoieh of cre-
Untitled Article
dulity must it require to suppose , that he could have the madness and effrontery to hazard . a prediction of his coming to life again the third day after he had been put to death ; an event , over which he could have no controul , nay which could not take place , unless the established laws of nature
should be counteracted and . overruled for his sake ? And if the event were not to happen , it is inconceivable , that Jesus should be so superlatively stupid as not to perceive that the attachment
of his followers , whatever it might have been before , would be turned into aversion—that any plan , previously concerted for the promotion or support of bis cause in the world , would at
once he abandoned and exchanged for determined opposition to it—and that thus ail I expectation of posthumous fame , except that of having made what could not but strike the weakest understand- ^ ing as an obviously futile attempt to hold the minds of his hitherto
deluded followers in the blind belief of a cheat be cut oif for ever . TlVus have I endeavoured to prove , that our blessed Saviour , by the very act of instituting a rite with the express view of
perpetuating a remembrance of himself , with which remembrance would be naturally and almost unavoidably connected a recollection of what he had dono taught and suffered in obeditMice
to the will of his heavenly father and froiii the purest love to mankind , has furnished us with a powerful argument in favour of the unshaken integrity and exalted goodness of his character , "and of the truth of his divine mis * sion .
Untitled Article
130 An Address at the Lord ' s Suppery by Mr . Bretland , of Exeter .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1809, page 130, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1734/page/10/
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