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Untitled Article
igion , and so fully ascertains the true foundation of right and wrong , of dignity and dishonour , of happiness and misery , as strongly to point out its divine original . But , the sublime moral truths which are handed down to us in tlie Scriptures , and the illuminating ideas which they furnish of
all the adorable perfections of the Deity , and the wise and amiable directions which they contain for the conduct of human life , are . not the only proofs with which we are faroured of their authenticity . Miracles and prophecies , and the gradual and full accomplishment of these prophecies in succeeding ages , claim our supreme attention ; and to these no other books in the world can form
any just pretensions . The wonders , for instance , which , through tlie instrumentality of Moses , were wrought ini Kgypt , made the most obdurate at lkst confess , that the finger of God was with him in all that he did . But , if the facts themselves should be denied , and it should be asserted that all the mighty works recorded of him were the
mere offspring of the author ' s own imaginatipn , or the invention , of some others who were bound together in a confederacy with him , let us see what credit would be given to a similar story if framed by any other people upon the face of the earth . Let any one man , or any Dumber of men be presumed to assert ^ that the Aborigines of this country came from Italy—that a
leader was raised up amongst them to conduct them to England as their promised land—that a cloud was to go before them to direct them on their way—that they passed 50 years in coming to Calais through forests and over mountains—that every
morning- they found in the fields an ample store Of provision which grew up in the night and melted with the heat of the sun—that God made a covenant with them commanding every child at a certain age to lose the first joint of the little finger of the left hand—that whilst the earth trembled under th < m he delivered to
them a great variety of laws , which were to bind them and their descendants for ever—that the first born of all their enemies were srlain in one night—that the sea standing up in heaps on every side they passed over to Dover as on the dry land—that the divine protection ever accompanied their obedience—that all their peculiar customs have descended from geiierationi to generation from the beginning—and that though they have been the scorn of other
nations for being deprired ol the joint of a finger , they still observe the ceremony , and could not be diverted from it by all the terrors of death , &c . &c . Could any people ever admit such a story and act upon it , unless it were founded on the inost palpable facts , and confirmed by testimony which is next to demonstration . Suppose Moses , then , to be an impostor , a madmin , and what you will , we shall only involve ourselves in the more inextricable difficulties . Should it even be allowed , that
Untitled Article
42 Summary of the Evidences of Revealed Religion
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1807, page 242, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2380/page/18/
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