The Deist, as a
Deist, believes, 'implicite' at least, so many and stupendous miracles
as to render his disbelief of lesser miracles, simply because they are
miraculous, gross inconsistencies. To have the battle fairly fought out,
Spinoza, or a Bhuddist, or a Burmese Gymnosoph, should be challenged.
Then, I am deeply persuaded, would the truth appear in full evidence,
that no Christ, no God,--and, conversely, if the Father, then the Son. I
can never too often repeat, that revealed religion is a pleonasm.
--Religion is revelation, and revelation the only religion.
Ib. p. 37.
'Shep.' Those believers, whose faith is to rely on the truth of the
Christian history, rest their assent on a written report made
by eye-witnesses; which report the various Churches and sects,
jealous of one another, took care to preserve genuine and
uncorrupted, at least in all material points, and all the
religious writers in every age since have amply attested.
A divine of the present day who shall undertake the demonstration of the
truth of Christianity by external evidences, or historically, must not
content himself with assuming or asserting this. He must either prove
it; or prove that such proof is not necessary. I myself should be quite
satisfied if I proved the former position in respect to the fourth
Gospel, and showed that the evidence of the other three was equivalent
to a record by an eye-witness: which would not be at all inconsistent
with my contending at the same time for the authenticity of the first
Gospel, or rather for the Catholic interpretation of the title-words
[Greek: Kata Matthaion], as the more probable opinion, which a sound
divine will neither abandon nor overload, neither place it in the
foundation, nor on the other hand suffer it to be extruded from the
wall.
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