A Series of Letters in Defence of Divine Revelation by Hosea Ballou
page 37 of 342 (10%)
page 37 of 342 (10%)
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Hebrew are not concerned? Have chemists been always of one opinion?'
&c. which must be answered in the negative. Nevertheless I may take liberty to observe that inasmuch as they have disagreed, it shews that the subjects about what they have disagreed, are as yet obscure, and therefore perhaps none of them are entitled to full and complete 'confidence:' for whatever is plain and obvious, men seldom disagree about. That the sun and moon are _globes_, and not _triangles_, all are agreed; and it would be impossible to raise a dispute on the subject: but whether either or both of them are inhabited, or even capable of being inhabited, by rational beings, similar or like unto ourselves, is a proposition not so clear, and respecting which the greatest philosophers might possibly disagree. The above remarks are intended to shew that when men differ in opinion, whether learned or unlearned, it is obvious that the truth about which they differ, to say the most of it, is yet but obscurely made manifest to their understanding. "In order to remove an objection, to the idea of revelation, on account of its being made only to one nation, &c. our friend says, 'It is true, I may be unable to see why a revelation was not equally necessary to one nation as well as to another, and at the same time; but is this a proof that no revelation was ever made to any nation at any time?' I am very ready to answer this question in the _negative_. But at the same time I must be excused for not being able to see any analogy between revelation and the discovery of the laws of electricity; as mentioned by our brother; and therefore my mind is not to be relieved from its difficulty in this way. If it could be proved that the principles manifested by revelation were like the principles in nature, against the developement of which there is no great barrier at one time than at another except what exists in the ignorance of |
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