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ture is effected equally with the supposed deviation from or transgression of them ( the case of miracles ) is unknown to us . The supposition supported by Mr , Hume of an array 01 antagonists or opposite proofs between miracles , and
testimony as the criterion of them , is so weak and untrue , as to be really unworthy of him . Wherein is exemplified any mutual destruction of arguments ? Does the liability to falsehood in testimony , annul or impede its capacity to record truth , even although that truth be of a miraculous nature ?
Certainl y not ; both the concessions in the Kssay , and numerous other more powerful considerations herein adduced , prove it beyond doubt . Is testimony any other than the record of experience ? " the criterion of facts which do not fall immediately under
our own observation . " What , then , can be more absurd than to oppose the record of positive experience to the absence of an uniform and personal one , or to
the liability to error in testimony , designed or undesigned , especially in a case of this kind , where multitudes of living witnesses could have contradicted k ? At the time the miracles are
recorded to have been performed , they were never denied ; the Power only by which they were accomplished was ever called in question . Human nature , too , having been fully admitted to be the same in all ages , the persons living in those days were equally
competent with ourselves , not only to ascertain the facts , but also to record to others the experience of their sc ? iscs : and surely nothing more either has been done , or is wanting to be done , to establish the proof of miracles , since this is the test by which we can alone know them : but such are the minor
sophisms adduced in corroboration of this celebrated objection , and maintained to be indispensable by their author . Much stress has been laid by Mr . Hume and others on the natural
improbability of miracles , but with little reason . VVere it a question of probability only ( which , however , it certainly is not ) , the balance of records in which they are noticed affirming their truth , and the preponderance of veracity in human testimony having been conceded in the Kssay , the evidence in their favour , even on thig ground , is
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decisive . By the addition of a single ounce to a pair of well poised , thoug h , ordinary scales , you will turn them as completely , and more commodiously too , than by that of a pound - , but the addition of hundreds or thousands of
ounces , at once , to a pair of sceptical scales , would produce no other effect that I am acquainted with , than the breaking of them : and well would it be for the experimentalist , if he were not materially injured in the general wreck . Improbability , moreover , has
no relation to testimony , but only to opinion : where testimony begins , improbability ends . To give testimony to any event , supposes that we have already ascertained the fact , either directly , by the observation of our own senses , or indirectly , through the medium of the senses of others . In either
case , Improbability is wholly out of the question . The consideration that the subsequent effects in the Christian world can be accounted for on no other principle , than upon the supposition of the truth of the miracles , with the important end
to be answered by them , are arguments that have justly made a forcible impression on numbers . Some have denied experience to be the sole foundation on which to ground our belief in testimony : others , in answer to the
objection that miracles are not wrought in our days , have replied to it by saying that they are no longer necessary ; information now abounds in the wor ^ ld ; mankind are of themselves sufficiently inclined to examine the records of
immortality ; a prceternatural stimulus is no longer wanting ; and the Almighty cannot be expected to resort to extraordinary means while ordinary ones are fully adequate 5 a priori considerations have actuated the researches of a few , who have directed their principal efforts to ascertain the abstract nature of
miracles , rather than the subsequent establishment of their proofs . The sum total , however , of these united observations , seem to me to tend more to the refutation of the minor difficulties
of the case , than to the subversion of the principal one : and one , more specious than Mr . Hume ' s , will , I apprehend , be easily admitted to have never been made . The capacity of testimony to record truth , even although that truth be of a miraculous nature , can no longer be
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An Examination qfMr . Hume ' s Objection to Miracles . lQ
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1817, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2460/page/19/
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