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Revelations / ' These speculations did not seduce the learned from the more sober and useful investigation of facts . The genuineness of the sacred text was examined in the Introductions of Michael is , Hug , Eichhorn , Jahn ; Jerusalem ' s Letters on the Writings and Philosophy of Moses ; Lang ' s Essay towards a Harmony of Sacred and Profane Writings ; Semler ' s Investigation of the Canon ; Weber ' s Contribution to the History of the New Testament
Canon ; Corrodi ' s Illustration of the History of the Jewish and Christian Canon ; Lichtenstein ' s Paralipomena Critica circa textum Veteris Testa menti ; Nosseh ' s Inaugural Dissertation at Halle , on the Internal Evidence , &c . &c . Different hypotheses of inspiration accompanied or followed the historical investigation . Ernesti maintained ( Neue Theol . Bibhsche ) that , as we cannot think clearly without words , nor impart to others a clear idea of our meaning without the use of words , the Holy Spirit gave the
expression to the sacred writers . Michaelis , Dodelein , Calixtus , Moras , judged it sufficient to maintain that God aided the writers , so that they could not err . Simon and Holdenius held , that what the writers have expressly stated to have been spoken by God is inspired , and only that . Kant's opinion was , that since an inspired book must have the character of moral usefulness for all men in all times , its morality alone is divine ; while others affirmed only that which is properly doctrine , to be inspired . Some thought that writings
which had been at first produced without inspiration , were afterwards affirmed and warranted by inspired men ; thus the historical books of the Old Testament were confirmed by Jesus Christ ; the Gospels of Mark and Luke by Peter and Paul . This was Tollner ' s opinion , and seems to have been Doddridge ' s . Semler ' s examination of the different hypotheses produced answers in defence of the commonly-received opinion from Schmid , Mullner , Pitiscus , Tollner , and many others . Simon ' s Critical History of
the Old Testament was followed by Letters of some learned Dutchmen , published by Le Clerc . The attempts of some Rationalists of the present century to explode rather than elucidate the facts of the Christian revelation , fall not within the history of sober criticism . Let it be shewn , if man is competent to shew it , that supernatural facts are impossible ; let the evidence on which the history of a revelation rests , be severely examined ; let it be proved , if the proof were possible , that it ought oot to be received on
the evidence of testimony , however strong and undeniable . But let not a plain and simple statement of supernatural facts be tortured and constrained into a record of what is purely natural ; let not literary trifling approach any part of the foundations of the dearest hopes of man . The reasoning of Hume and his followers against the credibility of miracles attacks them in a very different way ; it is sound , or it is sophistical ; but it is not mere gratuitous and unsupported assertion . It must be shewn , and I apprehend H has been shewn in the judgment of the author himself , that it is not
unanswerable . The author of the Essays on Truth seems , however , to have the fullest conviction , that to receive a history of a miraculous event on the evidence even of the strongest possible testimony , is to admit and to deny at the same time that like causes produce like effects . Faith in testimony rests upon the certainty of this law of causation . But a miracle is a departure from it ; therefore to receive a miracle on the evidence of iestinaooy is to believe that the law has been violated , on evidence which is valid , only because the law is inviolable . Hume * s objection against faith in miracles has
no weight unless it convicts it of this absurdity . The certainty of causation we must assume by our rational nature ; but that no event can arise from any cause whatsoever which is not within the
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Letter * frvm Germany * IJ 5
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1831, page 175, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2595/page/31/
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