Let us briefly
consider a few of the evidences. And in order to give the statement a
little novelty, we shall indicate the principal topics of evidence, not
by enumerating what the advocate of Christianity believes in believing
it to be true, but what the infidel must believe in believing it to
be false. The a priori objection to Miracles we shall briefly touch
afterwards.
First, then, in relation to the Miracles of the New Testament, whether
they be supposed masterly frauds on men's senses committed at the time
and by the parties supposed in the records, or fictions (designed
or accidental) subsequently fabricated--but still, in either case,
undeniably successful and triumphant beyond all else in the history
whether of fraud or fiction--the infidel must believe as follows: On
the first hypothesis, he must believe that a vast number of apparent
miracles--involving the most astounding phenomena--such as the instant
restoration of the sick, blind, deaf, and lame, and the resurrection
of the dead--performed in open day, amidst multitudes of malignant
enemies--imposed alike on all, and triumphed at once over the strongest
prejudices and the deepest enmity:--those who received them and those
who rejected them differing only in the certainly not very trifling
particular--as to whether they came from heaven or from hell.
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