On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
vious that this attempt must be made on the evidence of the clearest and most decisive testimony ; and that the causes to which the rise and establishment of Christianity shall be thus ascribed , must have no connexion , even of the remotest kind , with the truth of the controverted facts . But
it may now be proper to consider the causes to which the unbeliever , in the absence of historical testimony which might set aside the Christian records , must ascribe the origin and progress of Christianity ; and these must be the following , imposture and credulity .
On this hypothesis it may be observed , that it is gratuitous , and erected in opposition to historical testimony ; and that the exigence of the case does not require it . Moreover , the opera ^ tion which is assigned to imposture and credulity b y the unbeliever , can never be proved to be conformable to
analogy ; though it might reasonably be expected that an hypothesis which should be assumed for no other purpose than to avoid admitting what contradicts analogy , should possess the advantage of being itself analogous to the ordinaiy course of events , and free from the difficulty which it was invented to avoid . But was it ever
heard of since the world began , that an imposture , appealing to public facts , produced a total change in the religious associations of a large community ? And with respect to what imposture can effect , we must be allowed to judge by what it has effected . Upon the whole , the difference
between the argument of the Christian and the hypothesis of the Unbeliever stands as follows : The Christian attributes the rise , progress and establishment of Christianity , to a cause which indeed contradicts analogy , but which is affirmed upon proper evidence to have existed . The Unbeliever
erects , in opposition , an hypothesis not supported by testimony , and which can never be proved to be more conformable to analogy than the very facts which it is invented to overthrow . Upon a review of the whole it must surely be concluded , that if Christianity is an imposture , it was the most happy in its contrivance , the most dexterous
m its management , and the most magnificent in its effects that ever wrought upon the credulity of mankind -
Untitled Article
But before I quit the subject , it will be right to notice one or two objections to Christianity drawn not from a defect of testimony , or the incredibility of the facts , but from circumstances connected with this religion , and conclusions to be admitted by those who receive it . Of this kind are the
following : The partial diffusion of this religion supposed to be divine ; the incapacity of mankind in general to judge of its evidence , and the little good which has followed its promulgation .
Before I consider these objections separately , I shall premise an observation which will apply to them all , and which does not appear to have been sufficiently attended to 5 which is this : that as the legitimate and proper
method of attack is now relinquished , and objections urged against Christianity which do not , strictly speaking , apply to it as a question of history , those principles must be clear and certain from which these objections are derived . For in no case can this
method of opposing historical evidence be properl y employed , except the axioms which are thus brought in opposition to the testimony , are of such a nature that to reject them would be to bid defiance to the plainest conclusions of the human mind . Let
the objections above-mentioned be now separately considered . It is then said , that a religion wluch really proceeded from God , could never have been limited to a small number of the human race , but must , like the benevolence of its Author , have been
extended to them all . To this it may be replied , that a gradation of privilege is the favourite law of nature , and that moral advantages are , in facty allotted to mankind in very different degrees ; so that the objection , if it has any force , must be urged not against Christianity , but against the whole Geconomy of the Divine
government . But it is farther affirmed , that the generality of mankind are not qualified to determine upon the evidences of the Christian religion , and that it
cannot be supposed that a religion should proceed from God , of which the proof should not be equally clear and intelligible to all . This objection , like the preceding , has the misfortune to contradict a general principle of the Divine
Untitled Article
Mr . Cogan's Summary of tht Evidences of Christianity . 85
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1821, page 85, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2497/page/21/
-