date

21 Jan y 1814 Ch.3. Natural Evidence
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.
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  • 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 Jug. True Ch]
    Description: 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.
  • Title: [21 Jan y 1814 Jug. True Ch]
    Description: 21 Jan y 1814

    Jug. True

    Ch.3. Natural Evidence

    8

    Such multitudes—such countless multitudes—who at so many different occasions had been witnesses of the supernatural powers of Jesus—deriving in so many different shapes their profit from the beneficence of Jesus such countless multitudes to whose minds evidence of his power and of the beneficent purposes to which it was applied had been administered—and yet in the hour of danger and distrust—none to be found to stretch forth a hand to save him—scarce any so much as to utter a word to comfort him! Such and no better according to these historians was the result of real wonders, wrought in pursuance of a commission and powers from the Almighty really delivered:

    After due attention paid to these supposed real wonders, and the almost total inefficiency of them in relation to the persuasion the production of which was the end in view for which they were intended, with this inefficiency compare now, to the same purpose of producing credence the efficiency of the few falsely pretended wonders, supposed by others to have been wrought under so many different pretended commissions, by all the believers in these Jewish wonders believed and proclaimed to be false: the supposed supernatural evidence whatsoever they were from which the religion of Mahomet, and the religion of Bramah, (not to mention any other of the various absurd and fantastical systems) were respectively made to obtain the extensive credence which no one there in possession of.

    [marginal note]

    by all the promises that had been given to them of eternal felicity the destined reward for this attachment to which they were so continually called for /preached to them/ under the name of faith.