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Untitled Article
no writer , with the smallest pretensions to credibility , could have avoided ; such as might , doubtless , be found in a fictitious narrative constructed with tolerable skill . We by no means extend this observation to all his examples . Some of them are as striking as they are new ; and his remarks are often as just as they are ingenious . They shew Mr . Blunt to have been a careful and attentive reader and examiner of scripture . As such we
tender him our cordial thanks and regard . Would that the " Fellows " either of St . John ' s College or any other college who loiter about the precincts of the universities partook of his spirit . The Christian world would benefit thereby ! Mr . Blunt is often successful in the application of the argument , and the advantage of it is , to use his own language , " that it
consists of parts one or more of which , if they be thought unsound , may be detached without any dissolution of the reasoning as a whole . " They are not the links of a syllogism , whose chain , if one of them give way , is broken , and falls with all its consequences to the ground , but like so many weights of various sizes they may severally be removed , and the preponderance of the scale still be evident .
We give a decided preference to the latter of the two volumes , on the Veracity of the Five Books of Moses . The author is here on comparatively untried and untrodden ground . He has introduced us to interesting points and beauties in the Mosaic narrative , which , if they do not add much to our previous conviction of its genuineness and veracity , still afford sources of improving and agreeable reflection . He has struck , as it were , into some of the secret and retired by-paths , which skirt the high and beaten road of
criticism , and conducted us to some delightful spots for quiet and religious contemplation . Though his patriarchal church may be constructed of too slender materials , or may want a stronger cement ; though the argued imbecility and insignificance of a Bethuel , the father of Rebekah , ( Gen . xxiv ., ) might , we conceive , have been represented in a fictitious narrative with as little appearance oj ^ design ; though some other arguments from consistency may add little ~ to ^ our opinion of the credit to be attached to the book of
Genesis , founded already on less refined observation of the nature of its contentSj so obviously accordant as these contents are with every idea we can form of the manners and state of a primitive and patriarchal age ; yet it is pleasing and instructive to be assured , and the labours of Mr . Blunt do assure us , that the more closely the narrative is inspected , the more intimate our acquaintance becomes with its least prominent features , the stronger will be our conviction of its credibility ; the more reasons we shall discover
for believing that the- author of the earliest of histories has recorded facts with which he was acquainted , not devised a tale , ambitious of effect . Such remote instances of consistency as Mr . B . adduces are the proper proofs of this ; being exactly such as a practised writer , who never places a word without an object , would have placed in a more conspicuous situation—but falling incidentally as they do from the pen of the sacred historian , shew that while pursuing one simple object , he is at no pains td display the whole of his resources for narration .
A list of the instances of coincidence which these volumes contain might be useful to our readers , who would thus be able at once to verify their correctness for themselves , but it would require more space than can conveniently be allowed- We recommend them to perusal . The Quarterly Review , in speaking of the first of these volumes , recommends the work to those parents who feel the want of books calculated to interest as well as instruct young readers ; and we cordially agree in so doing . We recom-
Untitled Article
614- Undesigned Coincidences in Scripture .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1830, page 614, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2588/page/30/
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