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his learned dissertations 6 i De Oracnlis , &c . " had advanced , and ingeniously supported , the same opinion * ; and our author would probably have referred to this work , had it been rendered accessible to the English reader .
When Mr . B . endeavours to shew that miracles are , facts proveable by human testimony , the far-famed and most subtle objection of Mr . Hume ' s falls naturally under his review , ( pp . l 6 \ 19 . ) 4 C No testimony , " says that
ingenious writer , " is snfticient to establish a miracle , unless the testimony be of such a kind , that the falsehood of it would be more miraculous than the event it endeavours to establish *"— This
writer ' s expression / ' replies-Mr . B . is inaccurate . One miracle cannot be more miraculous than another . But instead of miraculous , substitute incredible * and I
join issue with him upon nis own principles . " ( pp . 17—19 . ) This indeed is the quest km between believers and unbelievers ; and the Christian apologist pledges himself to produce evidence , which , in the
estimation of a candid and impartial jndge , shall be decisive for the gospel . To the list of ' writers against Hume might have been added II . Taylor , who , at the conclusion of his thoughts on the
grand apostacy , has ul-: enssed the objection of the sceptical philosopher with singular conciseness and success . Mr . H . arranges tl \ c evidence
for the Christian religion under five general heads — the philosophical , —the direct insTouicAr , — the prophetic— the intmh sa t . and the evidence derived from the
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testimony of the Jewish scut * -, TUH KS . ( p . 19 . ) The philosophical argument assumes ttui truth of the Christian religion as a hypothesis , the ad missioty of which is necessary to account for certain obvious and
undisputed phenomena - this evideuce the autiior has stated with perspicuity and force , ( pp . 19—25 . ) referring , generally , upon the subject to Dr . Priestley ' s letters toa Philosophical Unbeliever , part ii . —a work in which the talents
of that celebrated , writer appear to particular advantage . ( Note 13 . ) As Mr . Gibbon , in his History of the decline and fall of the Roman empire , has attempted to prove that the Christian religion
made a slow and very limited progress in the world , our author adduces the testimony of its enemies to the contrary fact , and argues that the natural causes assigned by the historian as adequate to
account for the prevalence of the gospel are themselves effects , which require a sufficient cause , and which are absolutely inexplicable , unless Christianity be true . ( pp » 25 — 31 . ) Here the first discourse is
naturally brought to its conclusion . On looking back upon it we see reason to admire that condensation of thought and argument hy
means of which several important topics are canvassed — and this not slightly or superficially , within ' it narrow compass . If in some ,
instances , the transitions from one subject to another are abrupt , this defect will be excused as almost ins parable from a recapitulatory serin oh . £ To 6 d contnucd in our nrxt ^\
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20 $ Belsham ' s Summary View *
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* Pp . 34 . % * . % G . ( Anvit . ijoo . )
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1807, page 208, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2379/page/40/
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