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the persecution and suffering of the virtuous , and the too frequent success and impunity of the vicious . These arguments , coupled with the power of the Creator , who first made us to - a mm
recreate us , constitute , in our opinion , a very strong and rational ground for belief in a future state , independent of the evidence of Christianity ; and form , also , a very important and secure ground-work for the superstructure of revelation .
These arguments , aided by the tradition of her ancestors , doubtless emboldened that heroic Jewess ( whose story is so inimitably related in 2 Maccabees vii . ) to encourage the
immolation of her children by a foreign tyrant and her own martyrdom , rather than transgress the Mosaic law , and to cheer them in their dying agonies with that pious exhortation— " I cannot tell how ye came into my womb ; for I neither gave you breath nor life , neither was it I that formed the
members of every one of you ; but doubtless the Creator of the world , who formed the generations of man , and found out the beginning of all things , will also , of his own mercy , give you
breath and life again , as ye now regard Xiot your own selves for his law ' s sake . " This ancient and universal expectation of futurity is what the poetical author of the Cypress Grove , describes as * the voice of nature in almost all the
religions of the world , that general testimony charactered in the minds of the most barbarous and savage people ; for all Lave had some roving guesses at ages to come , and a dim , duskish light of another life , all appealing to one general judgment throne . To what
else could serve so many expiations , sacrifices , prayers , solemnities and mystical ceremonies ? To what such sumptuous temples and care of the dead ? To what all religion , if not to shew that they expected a more excellent manner of being , after the navigation of this life did take an end ?"
But we should be sorry to rest that belief solely on tradition or metaphysics : we believe it on the authority of the New Testament ; and though we are not prepared to say there is a demonstration , yet we do solemnly think it is little short of
demonstration , when we duly consider the variety of evidence , from the indisputably recent origin of our race ; from the con-
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nexion of the Jewish and Christian covenants ; from the necessity of some super-human communication , ( a necegsity which sceptics themselves prove to exist by the folly they impute to the whole civilized world for believing revelation ) ; from the evidence of
prophecy and miracles ; from the single , incomparable and inimitable personal character of our Saviour ; from the unrivalled perfection of his moral code , a system of Ethics which , even if not original in all its principles , at all events embodies and concentrates
every virtue which natural religion had taught the wise men of all previous ages and countries ; the number and disinterestedness of the witnesses who handed down this revelation , and who , the more ignorant and bigoted they
may be represented by sceptics , were , therefore , proportionably less able to invent such a system , and promulgate it with consistency and effect ; from the numerous historical documents
which in regular succession have transmitted these circumstances to the present times y from the peculiarly strong evidence contained in these writings , ( the genuineness admitted , ) for the grand miracle of the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ ; from the final spread of his religion over the whole civilized world : from the effects it has
already produced , and those that may be reasonably anticipated ; from the remarkable accordance of its principles with those of civil liberty and the signs of the times ; from the realization of its promises of hope and consolation to the afflicted and dying ; and ,
lastly , in the recorded faith of most of the enlightened philosophers of all subsequent ages and countries ; although too many of them , it must be admitted , have also given their assent to the most contradictory and unchristian additions .
Many men of distinguished intellect have credited revelation on single parts of this evidence : who , then , can deny Christianity with so much internal light of its own perfections ; with so many miraculous , providential
attestations , and with a knowledge or its effects ? Mr . Lawrence has not inaptly quoted the authority of Socrates , th at greatest of the ancient philosop hers , as pointing out the surest admission into the temple of wisdom through the portal of doubt . Surely , then , on the
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180 Review .- —Recent Controversy on Materialism
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1822, page 180, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2510/page/52/
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