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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.
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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.
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Title: [10 Oct. 1815 Jug. True 2]Description: 10 Oct. 1815 Jug. True 2 Ch. Miracles 2 Nick Hallam2013-08-09T16:41:00 §. 1. Not so represented. Thus stands the matter at present in these our times. But of the distinction between what was extraordinary and thence wonderful in what was and the supernatural—between the extraordinary material and the supernatural no clear ordeterminate idea was in those days perhaps in any nation and in particular not in that nation entertained. In that nation, even down to that time a circumstance which in a particular degree contributed to keep off and exclude the idea of any such determinate time was the supposition in which the foundations of the natural religion had been laid. viz. that of an extraordinary part taken by almighty power at first in the creation and thenceforward in the preservation of this his chosen and pre-eminently formed people: a state of things for the designation of which the single word theocracy a god government is at present employed, Even in those very histories various degrees gradations of wonder-working power with so many correspondent classes of wonders are represented as having or at any rate (which suffices for the present purpose, as being thought to have place. 1. Wonders performed by magic. (a) 2. Wonders performed by the assistance of evil spirits. (2) 3. Wonders performed by use made of the name of Jesus though without authority from Jesus. (3) 4. Wonders performed by his disciples by commission from him. (a) 5. Wonders not capable of being performed even with the benefit of such a commission nor by any person but himself. (5) [marginal note:] See whether 1 & 2 are not the same. Quaere whether d o be false prophets are distinct from 1 & 2? (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
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Title: [21 Jan y 1814 Jug. Util. Ch]Description: 21 Jan y 1814 Jug. Util. Ch.3. Natural Evidence 10 In this perpetual inconsistency this undiscontinued habit of forming extraordinary designs, and at the same time of employing, and successfully employing extraordinary means for the frustrating of those same extraordinary designs is found a solvent for all difficulties. Miracles have been wrought and prophecies have been delivered. By the miracles no credence—the prophecies no attention is obtained: as constantly as they are delivered, the miracles are disbelieved, as for any effect they produce might as well be disbelieved, the prophecies are misinterpreted. By the very persons before whose eyes they are wrought, the miracles are disbelieved: disbelieved, and why? even because their hearts are hardened. By the very people in whose country and to whose forefathers the prophecies were delivered, these prophecies were misinterpreted, misinterpreted and why? even because their eyes were blinded. By them to whose eyes the whole of that body of whatsoever evidence the case afforded was present the prediction or supposed prediction was interpreted one way, one sense was put upon it: by us to whose eyes but a fragment of that same body of evidence is present, the same prediction is required to be interpreted another way: another sense is required to be put upon it: why? even because their eyes were blinded. blinded? yes, that in the same occasion some eyes have some how or other been blinded seems not improbable, but which eyes? those to which the nearest and clearest or those [to] which the remotest and obscurest view had been presented?
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