The use and limitation of reason in religion; after which the positive evidences are introduced under the following heads:—viz. B.) Uncorrupted preservation of the books of Scripture. Antecedent to human laws, there must have been a perception of the difference of moral actions, because many actions would be judged good or evil, were all civil codes abolished. c.). This perception may be traced, in part, to experience and observation of the injurious tendency of vice, and the beneficial results of virtue;—but . d.).
There has been, among all men, a constant reference to the will of God, or of supposed deities, as a rule to determine the good or evil of the conduct of men. FIRST, (from a, b, and c,) That those actions which men consider good, have the implied sanction of the will of the Creator. Those truths which are found in the writings and religious systems of the heathen can be traced to revelation.
There was a substratum of common opinions among all early nations, in regard to facts and doctrines which are contained in the Old Testament:—thus, golden age, sacrifice, formation of the world, &c. Aristotle, Democritus, Heraclitus, and Epicurus either denied or refused to countenance the doctrine of the soul's existence after death.
DIRECT EVIDENCE
The contrary opinion not only supposes us capable of judging fully of the doctrines revealed, but also renders the external testimony comparatively nugatory. The use and limitation of reason in religion. a.) USE of reason in regard to revelation. The things compared must be of the same nature, and the comparison must be made in the same respects.
EXTERNAL EVIDENCE
Before the time of Christ, they were secured from alteration by their being generally known,—by the jealousy of the Samaritans,—by the public reading on Sabbath,—by Chaldee Paraphrase and the Greek version. After the birth of Christ, by mutual jealousy of Jews and Christians, and the general diffusion of the books. Impossibility of corruption because of general knowledge of the books, and mutual restraints of orthodox and heretics, Eastern and Western churches.
They could not be deceived, for instance, as to the feeding of the four thousand, gift of tongues, &c. As to the feats of the magicians, it is to be noticed, 1. That they were professed wonder-workers;. The double sense of prophecy, so far from being an objection, is a confirmation of the infinite wisdom that inspired it.
It is objected to some of the prophecies, that they were written after the event. Singular proceeding to condemn the true on account of the false, who were not received by the Jews themselves. d.).
INTERNAL EVIDENCE
It elevates our aspirations, and encourages us to the performance of the most difficult duties. The moral characters of Blount, Tyndal, Hobbes, Voltaire, &c., not very honourable to the cause which they espouse. b.). Great moral qualities attributed to the divine Being were abstract with them; but in Christ they are all exemplified.
COLLATERAL EVIDENCE
MISCELLANEOUS OBJECTIONS ANSWERED
Infidels are fond of contrasting (what they call) the simplicity of the book of nature with the mystery of the book of God. 1. Facts may be revealed, and yet be incomprehensible: e. g., it is revealed that God is omnipresent, but not how he is so, &c. The real causes of the phenomena named gravitation, cohesion, evaporation, &c., are unknown;. and even in pure mathematics, such incomprehensibles occur.
From the minuteness of the earth as contrasted with the vastness of the material universe, infidelity argues the insignificance of man:. thence the improbability of redemption. As to the (1) class, the ancient chronologies are rapidly losing character, especially the Hindoo and Chinese, which make the greatest pretensions to antiquity. That an indefinite time elapsed between the beginning spoken of in Genesis i, 1, and the work of the six days.
It is objected that light was created on the first day, and the sun not until the fourth.
DOCTRINES RELATING TO GOD
DOCTRINES RELATING TO MAN
THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTES Richard Watson
Of the moral nature of human actions there must have been a perception in the minds of men, previous to the enactment of laws. The Theist admits that a revelation of the will of God has been made by significant actions, from which the duty of creatures is to be inferred, and contends that this is sufficient. With respect to the first, nothing appears in the constitution of nature, or in the proceedings of the Divine.
The race itself is doomed to wasting labours of the body or the mind, in order to obtain subsistence. If then we are offenders against the Majesty of so dread a being, as the actual administration of the world shows its Governor to be, it is in the. The presumption here also must therefore be in favour of an express declaration of the will of God, in terms which the common.
The opinion that the human soul is a part of God, enclosed for a short time in matter, but still a portion of his essence, runs through much of the Greek philosophy. 34;The human soul is God, and the acts of the human soul are therefore the acts of God." This is the popular argument by which their crimes are justified. The Origin of those Truths which are found in the Writings and Religious Systems of the Heathen.
This was the origin of right laws, and of the different forms of government." (De Leg. -9) In Egypt, even in the days of Joseph, he and the king of Egypt speak of the true God, as of a being mutually known and acknowledged. THE illustration of the particulars mentioned in the paragraph, from which reference is made to this note, may be given under different heads.
The formation of the world from chaos may be discovered in the traditions of our Gothic ancestors.—See the Edda, and Faber's Horæ Mosaicæ, vol. In the Greek and Latin poets we have frequent allusions to the same fact, and in some of them highly poetic descriptions of the chaotic state of the world, and its reduction to order. It is asserted in the Edda, the record of the opinions of our Scythian forefathers.
When they were come, he threw the serpent down to the bottom of the ocean. But there, the monster grew so large, that he wound himself round the whole globe of the earth.
