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Untitled Article
belonging to the first class , while the blind seeing and the deaf hearing are thrown into the second , —or why the raising of the widow ' s son should belong to a different class from that of Jairus's daughter , —it is in vain for us to conjecture . Our author deems the former to have been real , but exaggerated , and not miraculous
cures , and the latter , impostures practised by the patients . The third class appears to comprehend all that could not possibly be assigned to either of the others ; and though it is made as small as could be , by the utmost stretching of the other two , involves so large an amount of apostolical invention , that is fraud , as seems scarcely compatible with the mixture of honesty for which our author is willing to give them credit .
The first class are those on which he * enlarges most , adducing copious quotations from Dr . Douglas ' s Criterion of Miracles / and endeavouring to find a parallel to these alleged miracles of Christ's , in the notable frauds and delusions witnessed at the tomb of the Abbe Paris . He has shown his generalship in discussing that class of the Gospel miracles which are least circumstantially and minutely detailed , and which consisted in the cure of diseases most
analogous to those alleged to have been cured at the Abbe Paris ' tomb . And after arguing these to have been delusions , he is better prepared to allege the rest to have been frauds . Now , I will grant that , if those miracles , which subsequent enthusiasts or impostors have endeavoured to rival , were the only kind recorded in the New Testament , we might doubt the conclusiveness of our evidence for their reality . But there are others more circumstantially recorded in general , and more remote from reasonable suspicion , which miracle-workers of later days have not attempted to rival * , because mental excitement , ' spiritual drunkenness /
M . " could not avail to produce the required effect , and gross imposture would have been easily detected . We do not find them pretending to feed multitudes without natural provisions—to convert water into wine—to calm the tempest , to walk on the sea , or to raise the dead ;—or if they do , it is * not in direct terms , but in expressions that unambiguously are intended so to be understood ; ' as in a case quoted at p , 103 , where the belief of the credulous is invited , but not that of the inquirer challenged . I would reverse the order of proceeding adopted by this author
in investigating the Gospel miracles . I would examine first into those whicn are most minutely recorded , most fully attested , and therefore most susceptible of circumstantial proof , or direct refutation . If these will not bear investigation , it may scarcely be worth while to refute those which are mentioned more briefly , and with less detail ;—if the former are found irrefragable , we may deem it reasonable to admit the rest , which are stated on the same authority to have beeji performed at the instance of t )* $
Untitled Article
£ 3 % Orthodoxy and Unbelief .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1832, page 832, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1826/page/40/
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