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We suspect that Mr . B . ' s definition of belief in Christianity will be looked up 6 n as extremely simple and meagre by a large proportion of modern Christians : — "To believe in the Christian Revelation , is to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was a teacher commissioned by God to reveal the doctrine of a future life , in which virtue will find a correspondent reward , and vice suffer condign punishment ; and that of this commission he gave satisfactory evidence , by his resurrection from the dead . " ( p . 5 ) .
Such is the author ' s correct and scriptural statement of ivhat constitutes a believer in Christianity ; and this is the first of his " Preliminary Considerations : ' the next is Testimony ) upon which , as he remarks , ( p . 6 . ) the credibility of the original promulgation of the gospel principally rests .
In certain circumstances testimony is a safe and infallible guide . This alone supports the greater number of the facts which men believe : in the common affairs of life it regulates their conduct : its competency is admitted in the most solemn proceedings , and on the most important occasions ; and ? he who should seriously defuse in all circumstances ttf give creel it to it , would be justly regarded and treated as a lunatic , ( pp . 6 , 7 . )
A concise discussion follows or the supposed , inexpedi mncy , and , to divine wisdom , moral impossibility of revelation . To Tindal ' s assertion , in his Christianity as old as the creation " that the law of nature is absolutely perfect , Mr . . B- opposes a plain and palpable f . ict :
" Whut has the light of nature actually accomplished , unaided by divine revelation ? What has it discovered of the attributes of Cod , of the rule of duty , or of the doctrine of a future life ? ' * (? . ? . ;
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JBelsham ' s Summary Fieiv . - 201
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Among the books ? of reference on this subject , which are enumerated in a note , ( 4 ) might have been ranked Bishop Sherlock ' s Discourses , Vol . I . Nos . 1 , 2 . &c . " The nature , the use , and the evidence of miracles ., " are now considered ; and here , as might be expected , the writer ' s definitions ,
illustrations , and reasonings , are , for the most part , selected and abridged from those of Mr . Farmer , in his masterly dissertation on miracles ; a work which , ( proh pudor !) after an interval of thirty three years , at length found its way to a second edition , and in praise and recommendation of which , both for its design and exedition , it is difficult to be lavish .
Mr . 15 . accurately represents it as the opinion of many of the wisest and best philosophers , that the laws of nature are not only the appointment , but-the actual agen-. cy , and immediate energy , of the . divine Being himself , exerting , itself according to certain stated rules , which infinite wisdom has prescribed : —and to this purpose , he gives an excellent quotation , in a note * , from Maclaurirfs account of Sir Isaac Newton ' s discoveries , ( pp . 11 , 12 . )
The appearance of Samuel to Saul at Kmlor having been thought by some persons to countenance the popular opinion that miracles may be performed by inferior agents , without the permission and express appointment of tlio Supreme , Mr . 15 . treats it as a supposed appearance , as accord-, ing to the hypothesis of Dr . Sanuiel Chandler , the artifice of a . practised ventriloquist , ( pp . 13 , 14 . and note <> . ) Van < LiJe h * * ( 7 )
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1807, page 207, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2379/page/39/
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