Unitarianism Defended: A Series of Lectures by Three Protestant Dissenting Ministers of LiverpoolMartineau, James
Religion
Unitarianism Defended: A Series of Lectures by Three Protestant Dissenting Ministers of Liverpool
Martineau, James
Unitarianism
The variance between two narratives is no sufficient reason for
rejecting both, though it compels the disbelief of one. In the present
instance, the probabilities appear to preponderate in favour of St.
Luke’s. And, returning from the particular case to the general rule, I
conclude this topic by repeating, respecting the “_credibility_” of any
set of historical works, the remark formerly made respecting their
“_authenticity_.” I protest against its being urged upon us as an
indissoluble magnitude, without fractional parts, incapable of increment
or decrement, analysis or composition, which must be taken whole, or
rejected whole; and I claim the right, till it can be shown not to
belong to me, of reducing the recorded events of Scripture into classes,
according to their decree of probability and their force of testimony.
With this qualification, we maintain, with all other Christians, the
ample credibility and the actual truth of the Gospel records, making no
divorce between the natural and the miraculous, but taking both as
inseparably woven together into the texture of the same faithful
narrative.
But this step in the argument, I am reminded, cannot be taken without
another, which brings us directly to the intellectual infallibility of
the Apostles. Among the primary and undisputed facts which they record
from personal experience, are the miracles which they wrought; and
miracles, being an interposition of God, establish the divine authority
of the performer; so that all the lessons and sentiments propounded by a
person so endowed, must be received as immediate communications from the
Unerring Spirit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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