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Summary of the Evidences of Revealed ' Religion . 245
Untitled Article
cfead to life . E ^ en bow we are furnished with livin g monamenfs of the divinit y of their mission , by the prophecies whioh they predicteH , which hitve already been fulfilled , and are at this very time fulfilling :.
The conclusion of the whole is this , that the Mosaic and Christian dispensations hare descended from above , from the Father of lights . Being his works , therefore , they must be perfect , and subservient to the highest interests of man , whilst they instruct us in every duty , and direct our thoughts tb another and a better world . The original writers of those revelations , were taught
of God . The laws and the prophecies which they delivered were the venerable declarations of his will . Every iota of them was therefore perfect * But , how then are we to account for the contradictious with which they arc blended at present ? I answer , that these are not chargeable upon the original writers , but upon their uninspired transcribers and translators , and the teinerity of
flome daring men , who did not scfuple to mix their own conceits and impositions with divine truth . Besides , the lists of genealogies , and merely historical passages , are not to be considered as parts of those inspired scriptures ^ which are profitable for doctrine , for reproof , for instruction in righteousness . Mistakes , how ,, ever , which are found in these ., probably did not belon g to the
original . Another thing to be considered is , that contradictions are frequently supposed , which are not such in fact , but only thought to be such through the medium of our own ignorance or perverseness . Some people are very ready to assent to the posi - tion , that Matthew , or Luke , or Paul , were mistaken and con - tradict one another , when they only discover their own
shallowness . But ^ where there are the most manifest contradictions , we should pause and hesitate , before we impute thereto the sacred writers . We should first say , may nof the translator or transcriber Jiave unintentionally blundered , or the impertinent commentator given his own turn to the passage which afterwards crept into the text ? When we are informed in the second book of Samuel , that David paid to Araunah only 50 shekels of silver for his
threshing floor ; but learn in the first book of Chronicles , that the price of this purchase was 000 shekels of gold—we cannot suppose that the real sum which was paid was not as well know ft to the one writer as ' to the other , but that * he difference between them is entirely owing to some blundering copyist . The same thing may be observed concerning the clashing of Lov . xxiii . 18 . and Nnrm
xxviii . " 27 , and other similar passages . There are other places , Tthere we may detect mistakes , which are also impurable either t < % the carelessness or the Vanity of the transcriber . For instance , when the contributions of David and the princos are estimated af as many thousand talents of gold and silver , as ]> r . Pricleaux observe * Would amount to above £ 00 millions of our money—we may be
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1807, page 245, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2380/page/21/
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