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« If our transgressions and sins be upon us , and we pine away in thern , how should we then live ? ' * The
instances of the inevitable consequences of sinful courses , which are at all times melancholy and afflicting spectacles , must , in such circumstances , have been dreadfully perplexing * . But under the Christian dispensation , the humble penitent who , though late , has
fully discovered his errors , and has exercised himself in the painful road of amendment , acquiesces with submission , or even with gratitude , in those severe chastisements by which he has been reclaimed , whilst he looks forward with hope to that blessed
change of being which shall relieve him from the burdens fastened upon him by sin , and shall admit him to that blissful state promised to all them that are purified from their iniquities through Jesus Christ . H . T .
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he could get respecting the life of Christ , and who * therefore , may admit the general correctness of these chapters without maintaining the perfect accuracy of every minute particular recorded in them . T . C . H .
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Mr . Co&an on the Presumptions in favour of Christianity . 145
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Sir , IN addition to the remarks on the External Evidences of Christianity , which you did me the favour to
pubhsh , [ 1—3 and 84—87 , ] I am induced to transmit to you a few observations on certain circumstances appertaining to this religion which may be r ^ arded as presumptions of its truth . But I would first remark , that if God should think fit to interfere in an
extraordinary manner in the government of the world , it is reasonable to believe that such interference would be directed to some great and important object . Whether any such object has been proposed or effected by the Christian revelation , will speedily appear .
I observe , then , that one grand and avowed object of Christianity was to deliver mankind from the idolatry that prevailed in the world at the time of its promulgation , and to establish in its stead the knowledge and worship of the one living and true God . And
this object has been gloriously accomplished . That this was one of the great purposes which Christianity was intended to answer , is explicitly stated by the Apostle Paul , in his manly address to his auditors at Athens , an
address which may almost be considered as prophetic of the extensive diffusion of Christianity , and of the effects by which its propagation would be followed . It may , perhaps , be said , that nature so clearly teaches the being , unity and perfections of God ,, that , without the aid of revelation , mankind
must in time have emancipated themselves from idolatry and superstition , and have attained to all necessary and useful knowledge of the Creator . What they could have done for themselves
is by no means certain ; what has been done for them is manifest and unquestionable . And it is also indisputable , that , where the light of revelation was withheld , they had made but very smalt advances towards the attainment of the
knowledge in question . Oa &uch a point it would . be folly to speak'with confidence ; but I doubt exceedingly ,
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Edinburgh , Sir , January 13 , 1821 . f 8 iHE paragraph numbered 5 , in JL Vol . XV . p . 706 , appears to me to want some explanation : < c The probability is that he , " Luke , used a former and more concise edition , as
we may term it , of his predecessor ' s Gospel . " Yet , a little farther on , the writer seems to assert , that Luke ' s Gospel was written first . I shall feel obliged to him for an explanation of the sentence I have quoted . I think also that he will find it difficult , if not
impossible , to reconcile Matft . i . n . with the first two chapters of Luke , or with the genealogy in Luke iiL , or the fact that Jesus was thirty years old in the fifteenth year of Tiberius . The
arguments which have been offered by Dr . Priestley and others , I think , fully prove that Matthew i . ii . are spurious . But I cannot perceive any sufficient proof of the first two chapters in Luke being spurious . There is nothing that deserves to be called external evidence
against them . According to them , the appearance of the angel to Zacharias might happen a very short time before the death of Herod , and Jesus might be born a year and a half after Herod ' s death . All the other
difficulties m these chapters may , I think , be satisfactorily explained b y those who believe that Luke wrote , like any other biographer , from the best information
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VOfc . XVI- U
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1821, page 145, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2498/page/17/
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