THE GENERAL ARGUMENT

THE GENERAL ARGUMENT

We now proceed to THE GENERAL ARGUMENT embracing both direct and circumstantial evidence. A full discussion would require a volume, and cannot be expected here; but something should be said, especially as most questions of difficulty, in practical affairs, are settled by evidence arising from circumstances which confirm each other.

The thing asserted is that God has given us a revelation declaring himself to be a moral governor; stating his system of government; and disclosing a plan for the recovery of mankind out of sin, and raising them to perfect and final happiness.

• 1. It furnishes an account of the world, as God’s world.
  • 1.) God’s providence, commands, promises, and threatenings.
  • 2.) Distinguishes God from idols.
  • 3.) Describes the condition of religion and of its professors, in a world considered as apostate and wicked.
  • 4.) Political events are related as affecting religion, and not for their importance as mere political events.
  • 5.) The history is continued by prophecy, to the end of the world.
• 2. It embraces a vast variety of other topics; natural and moral.
  • 1.) Thus furnishing the largest scope for criticism.
  • 2.) So that doubts of its truth confirm that truth, for in this enlightened age the claims of a book of such a nature could be easily and finally shown to be false, if they were so.
  • 3.) None who believe in natural religion, hold that Christianity has been thus confuted.
• 3. It contains a minute account of God’s selecting one nation for his peculiar people, and of his dealings with them.
  • 1.) Interpositions in their behalf.
  • 2.) Threats of dispersion, &c. if they rebelled.
  • 3.) Promises of a Messiah as their prince; so clearly as to raise a general expectation, &c.
  • 4.) Foretelling his rejection by them, and that he should be the Savior of the Gentiles.
• 4. Describes minutely the arrival of the Messiah, and his life and labors; and the result, in the establishment of a new religion.

Suppose a person ignorant of all history but the Bible, and not knowing even that to be true, were to inquire into its evidence of authenticity, he would find,

• 1. That natural religion owes its establishment to the truths contained in this book. This no more disproves natural religion, than our learning a proposition from Euclid, shows that the proposition was not true before Euclid.
• 2. The great antiquity of revelation.
• 3. That its chronology is not contradicted but confirmed by known facts.
• 4. That there is nothing in the history itself to awaken suspicion of its fidelity.
  • 1.) Every thing said to be done in any age or country, is conformable to the manners of that age and country.
  • 2.) The characters are all perfectly natural.
  • 3.) All the domestic and political incidents are credible. Some of these, taken alone, seem strange to some, in this day; but not more so than things now occurring.
  • 4.) Transcribers may have made errors, but these are not more numerous than in other ancient books; and none of them impair the narrative.
• 5. That profane authors confirm Scripture accounts.
• 6. That the credibility of the general history, confirms the accounts of the miracles, for they are all interwoven, and make but one statement.
• 7. That there certainly was and is such a people as the Jews; whose form of government was founded on these very books of Moses; and whose acknowledgment of the God of the Bible, kept them a distinct race.
• 8. That one Jesus, of Jewish extraction, arose at the time when the Jews expected a Messiah, was rejected by them, as was prophesied, and was received by the Gentiles, as was prophesied.
• 9. That the religion of this Jesus spread till it became the religion of the world, notwithstanding every sort of resistance; and has continued till now.
• 10. That the Jewish government was destroyed, and the people dispersed into all lands; and still for many centuries, continue to be a distinct race, professing the law of Moses. If this separateness be accounted for, in any way, it does not destroy the fact that it was predicted.

• 1. Recapitulation of the preceding ten observations.
• 2. Add the fact that there are obvious appearances in the world, aside from the Jews, which correspond to prophetic history.
• 3. These appearances, compared with Bible history, and with each other, in a joint view, will appear to be of great weight, and would impress one who regarded them for the first time, more than they do us who have been familiar with them.
• 4. The preceding discussion, though not thorough, amounts to proof of something more than human in this matter.
  • 1.) The sufficiency of these proofs may be denied, but the existence of them cannot be.
  • 2.) The conformity of prophecies to events may be said to be accidental, but the conformity itself cannot be denied.
  • 3.) These collateral proofs may be pronounced fanciful, but it cannot be said they are nothing. Probabilities may not amount to demonstration, but they remain probabilities.
• 5. Those who will set down all seeming completions of prophecy, and judge of them by the common rules of evidence, will find that together they amount to strong proof. Because probable proofs, added together, not only increase evidence, but multiply it.
• 6. It is very well to observe objections; but it should be remembered that a mistake on one side is far more dangerous than a mistake on the other; and the safest conclusion is the best.
• 7. Religion, like other things, is to be judged by all the evidence taken together. Unless all its proofs be overthrown, it remains proved. If no proof singly were sufficient, the whole taken together might be.
• 8. It is much easier to start an objection, than to comprehend the united force of a whole argument.
• 9. Thus it appears that the positive evidence of revelation cannot be destroyed, though it should be lessened.