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pared to prove that the proposition is false , but were my hope of a future life to rest solely or principally upon it , I should wisii to see it confirmed by something like logical demonstration .
In pp . 218 , 219 , of Apeleutherus , there is a fine passage on the painful moral discipline to which man is rendered subject , and which gives a more persuasive force to the argument . But I am afraid that the sufferings of
which our Author treats so eloquently , would more generally excite a doubt of the perfection of the Divine attributes ^ than suggest a confident expectation of a life to come . Our Author rejects with disdain the argument for a future life , which has been
drawn fiorn the inequality of the Divine dispensations , asking , with the poet , What can we reason but from what we know 2 and quoting the well-known observation of Mr . Hume , ** that you have no ground to ascribe to the Author of Nature any qualities
bcrt what you see he has actually exerted and displayed iu his productions . ' I am surprised that he did not perceive that there is opportunity to apply this reasoning against himself .
I take human life as I find it , chequered with suffering , deformed by moral evil , and terminating in death ; and I ask , whether the plan of Providence , as far as we have any certain knowledge of it , corresponds to the
thought him in an error I should not have troubled myself to write what J have written ) consists in magnifying" presumptions into proofs , and attributing * an undue force to certain considerations which render revelation credible , in order to shew that it was not necessary . But as long * as man should appear to be lost for ever in
the grave , it would he at least a thing ardently to be desired , tLut we could he distinctly informed by Him who made us , what he has yet in view respecting us . Setting * aside the history of revelation , nothing- like the restoration of a man once dead , that is , nothing which , as a matter of facty could give any assurance of a life to come , has ever been heard of since the world began . As Mr . BeUhain somewhere eloquently expresses himself , on the natural probability of a resurrection , "
Experience is silent- philosophy is confounded ; revelation alone darts a beam , , # f light through the solid g-looin- the messenger of heavenly truth announces , that all who are in their graves shall hear his voice , and shall come forth "
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character of an infinitely wise , powerful and benevolent Creator ? The grouud on which our Author ' s argument is founded will oblige him to answer , no . How then am I to be
assured that God is infinite m wisdom , power and goodness ? The hypothesis of a future life , indeed , will settle every thing * , but on what certain foundation is the hypothesis to rest , until the perfection of the Divine character shall have been established ?
It will not satisfy to say , that there must be a future state , and therefore that God may be infinitely powerful * wise and good } nor on the other hand , that God is all perfection , and therefore there must be a life to come .
Here Christianity comes admirably to our assistance , and declares what otherwise , however plausible , would be assumption only , that ** this mortal will put on immortality . " But , it is said , the grand miracle on which Christians have usually laid so great
a stress , namely , the resurrection of Christ , neither proves the immortality of the soul , nor the general resurrection of human bodies . Granting the reality of the fact , and , what I think will not be denied , that the apostles understood its meaning , it is a divine attestation to the future
existence of the human race ; and an attestation which I would not exchange for all the arguments which have been advanced in favour of the doctrine , from the days of Plato to the present hour . Upon the whole , I feel a decided conviction , that , without revelation ,
the question respecting a future life is involved in deep obscurity . And I think it worthy of remark , that , with the exception of one or two individuals of a sanguine cast of mind , I have met with no one who doubted
of the truth of Christianity , who did not doubt in an equal degree of a life to come . At the same time , the uncertainty in which nature leaves the subject is no objection to the reality of a future being , when it is confirmed
by the voice of revelation . We are told , indeed , that " if Christianity be not built upon the solid rock of natural religion , it can have no foundation at all . " If by this observation were meant that revelation < Janttot contradict the dear and cerfcain dteduel ions of reason , I should sutuBClribe
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2 £ 4 Mr . Cogans Strictures on some of the Arguments in € i Apeleutherus ^
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1819, page 224, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1771/page/12/
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