date

21 Jan y 1814 Jug. True Ch
21 Jan y 1814

Jug. True

Ch.3. Natural Evidence

5

What is more evidence of a better sort than this—evidence of a sort that stands clear of this objection, even according to you, did this same all-wise being afford—afford to hundreds and thousands in this very case. In proof of the ordinary and natural doings and sayings of Jesus to these same multitudes he afforded the evidence of their senses, that which he did they saw him do: that which he said they heard him say. To the inhabitants of those places and those times this immediate sort of evidence was by him deemed necessary: to them it was by him accordingly presented: to us, to the inhabitants of these our places and our times, had it been his design that we should give credence to those same facts, how can it be that in the pursuit of this same end he would of employed those same means: means which whether sufficient or no, can not at any rate be properly deemed superfluous.
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  • Title: [21 Jan y 1814 Jug. True Ch]
    Description: 21 Jan y 1814

    Jug. True

    Ch.3. Natural Evidence

    7.

    Unbeliever. True. to this length unquestionably the objective does extend. MS alt. illegible. When the system of supposed MS alt. illegible. facts being to such a degree unconformable to the known and at present universally experienced course of nature, true it is that even supposing it for argument sake to be true still at any rate, to an inhabitant of succeeding and distant times the nature of the case could not afford a sufficient ground for warrant for giving credit to it. But to our objective what just answer does this observation of yours afford? Not any. By this observation of yours the very thing in dispute is assured. That there has been a religion revealed and revealed of old, is according to your observation to be taken for granted. Well then say you since there must have been and has been a revelation, and that revelation capable of being sufficiently proved and sufficiently proved accordingly, it is by this sort of evidence of proof that it must have been proved: for the nature of the case admitts not of any other. Thus say you, but no: this is more than one can grant. Not to your alledged revelation alone, but to every alledged revelation does our objection extend, and this and no less is the very extent which we mean to give to it. Dealing with a being endowed with human reason, an all-wise being would not attempt to put upon him a revelation supported by no better evidence. No such supposed revelation would utter: or, if he did, by no such weak evidence alone, but to some stronger species of evidence to some evidence of a stronger complection would he betake himself for the fulfillment of his designs in his endeavours to produce acceptance for it in the minds in which it was to produce credence.

    7.

    Unbelievers Reply
  • Title: [21 Jan y 1814 Jug. True Ch]
    Description: 21 Jan y 1814

    Jug. True

    Ch.3. Natural Evidence

    7

    This incidental deficiency in the article of belief, could it on the part of the sort of persons in question have had for its cause any natural or extraordinary aversion to the proof of extraordinary things—any natural or preternatural propensity to disbelief or doubt? In all places at all times propensity to the belief of extraordinary and improbable things has been strong not in the inverse but in the direct ratio of the prevalence of ignorance and error. Very ignorant and copiously stocked with errors especially in comparison with modern times were the minds of the people who in those places were living in those times if this every page of those same histories contributes to assure use. To a large and indefinite extent, according to those same histories, among those very people, facts which according to those same histories were extraordinary—extraordinary in the same ways and at the same time false, failed not to obtain credence. (a)

    Among the very same set of people—in the very same circles, in relation to the very same species of facts, unbelief and belief are in and by those same histories stated as prevalent: unbelief? and on the part of what persons? in relation to what sort of facts? in relation to those very facts which in these same histories are declared to be true, belief again? and in relation to what individual facts? in relation to those individual facts which in and by those same histories were at the same time stated as false.
  • Title: [21 Jan y 1814 Ch.3. Natural Evidence]
    Description: 21 Jan y 1814

    Ch.3. Natural Evidence

    6

    Meantime according to these very histories, multitudes there were to whom this superior evidence was actually administered—to human beings in great numbers administered in great quantities—administered within a very small extent of territory—and yet within this narrow extent no general persuasion produced. To those most extraordinary facts which notwithstanding this best sort of evidence is in such prodigious quantity supposed or alledged to have been administered to them so small a number if any of them were made to believe, on no other ground than that of a sort of evidence which in proof of the most ordinary and most naturally probable species of facts is more received—more at least where any ofa better sort is to be had, we who now here are called upon to give credence.