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
though he disavows the design of explairtiag away all that appears miraculous in the Old Testament , yet he has not informed us where he draws the line between the natural and the supernatural , nor what distinction he makes between " giving an air of probability to these ancient writings "
and explaining- away the miracles which they relate . He acknowledges , if I rightly understand him , an important relation between these ancient writings and the books of the New Testament : but adds , that the latter
" might stand their ground , although the writings of Moses and the prophets had been trampled in the dust /* Here is the very sentiment which he was expressly called upon , to defend ; but I look in vain for the arguments
which I expected to be advanced in its support . Your correspondent cannot require to be told that miracle is necessary to establish the claim of any religion to the character of a divine revelation . If , then , Moses is only
to be considered as an " admirable general , " who led his army dry-shod over the Red Sea by means of his knowledge of the tides ; if the thunders and lightnings of Mount Sinai were nothing more , as he insinuates ,
than a natural tempest , which ' might well frighten the Hebrews , who had passed their days in a land where rain and storms were unknown ; " if the pillar of sinoke and fire which guided the Israelites , was merely an artificial
signal like that employed by Alexander the Great to conduct his army ; if the story of the walls of Jericho falling down at the sound of the rams ' horns be merely * a figure of speech to signify the ease with which the Hebrews made themselves masters of
that city ; " if the phrase , so often occurring in the Old Testament , of " Thm ^ saith the Lord , " be merely " an idiom of office , a form of speech chosen to head the new law—somewhat like , And be it enacted , 8 fC . "—« all those tokens of Divine
interposition be thus converted into tricks ° t state or events of ordinary occurrence , what ground , I ask , will remain , on which to establish the divine authority of Judaism ; or how can the superstructure of Christianity , which jests upon it , be saved from demolition > J * vas perfectly well aware that your
Untitled Article
correspondent is not singular in bis " inconsistent scepticism / ' It is a common practice among liberal Christians to take unwarrantable liberties with writings which they yet acknowledge as the oracles of truth and the records of revelation , and to reject without ceremony whatever does not
square with their notions of probability . Now to me it appears that one miracle is just as probable as another ; and supposing the external evidence to be equally good , there is nothing more incredible in the Jewish story of the Israelites marching dryshod through the Red Sea , while " the waters were a wall unto them
on their right hand and on their lcft > * than in the Christian miracle of Jesus walking upon the sea of Galilee without sinking . I cannot , therefore , understand why those who admit the truth of the mjracles recorded in the New Testament should be so "
anxious to give an air of probability" to the miracles of the Old Testament , unless they can shew , what I contend is contradicted by the whole tenour of the Scriptures , that the Jewish and Christian systems are altogether distinct and independent .
Setting aside this inconsistency of admitting Christianity as a divine revelation and denying the same character to Judaism , I find no fault with your correspondent for dealing with the Jewish Scriptures as lie would with any other ancient records , in
endeavouring to discover the real nature of those events which gave occasion to the marvellous stories they contain . But I am perfectly astonished that he should propound his explanations as the interpretation of the meaning of the writers themselves . If there is
any signification in language , the historians of the Jewish nation were themselves convinced , or intended at least to convince their readers , of the really miraculous nature of many of the incidents which they relate . To say that all these stories of miracles were merely * ' figures of speech , " V metaphorical expressions , " a peculiar ** phraseology employed to describe what a profane author would give us in a simpler style , " is to make the Bible a book oi : emgnuis , fitted more to mislead than instruct , and to ascribe to these plain writers flights of rhetoric beyond the wildest vagaries
Untitled Article
Mosaic Mission * 659
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1825, page 659, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2542/page/19/
-