THE CONNECTION OF NATURAL AND REVEALED THEOLOGY: BEING AN ATTEMPT TO ILLUSTRATE THE EVIDENCES AND DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY BY THEIR RELATION TO THE INDUCTIVE PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. WITH NOTES AND AUTHORITIES COLLECTED FROM THE MOST EMINENT ANCIENT AND MODERN WRITERS. BY EDWARD WILLIAM GRINFIELD, M. A. MINISTER OF LAURA CHAPEL, BATH. Arena non sine calce. LONDON: PRINTED FOR T. CADELL AND W. DAVIES, 1818. DIVINITY SCHOOL LIBRARY HARVARD UNIVERSITY "The principle in which this branch of logic hath its foundation, is a native bent, and propensity of the mind, strengthened by experience, and confirmed by habit, from which we are involuntarily led to expect that nature and truth are uniform and analogous throughout the whole universe; that similar causes of whatever kind, will in similar circumstances at all times produce similar effects; or if the causes cannot be known, that similar effects, will explain, illustrate, and account for similar effects. This principle, then, resolves itself into similitude; and reason acts upon it, as in all other cases, by comparing and judging. Thus we argue from truths which have been proved by direct reason, or which are obvious to simple apprehension, to others which are similar in cause or effect; and if paring and judging, the principle will bear us out, we conclude the latter to be true: a conclusion which will supply us with a kind and degree of truth sufficient for most of the uses and purposes of human life. upon com "This method of reasoning is analogy, which according to Quintilian, is to refer a thing that is doubtful to something similar and different, that uncertainties may derive their proof from certainties."" Tatham's Chart and Scale of Truth.. "The probability of most things, and the possibility of all things contained in the Scriptures, may well be discerned by reason itself, which makes their existence the more easy to be believed." Baxter's Saints' Rest, Part ii. Ch. iii. CONTENTS. PART THE FIRST. THE CREDIBILITIES OF REVELATION IN GENERAL. INTRODUCTION.-The object of the work stated. Its connection with the inductive philosophy of the hu- man mind. The origin and foundation of natural theology. To whom the work is addressed. The argument stated. The cautions which are necessary to estimate this kind of evidence. The obligations of the author to Reid and Butler. SECT. I.—Is not a Revelation possible? Does it imply any contradiction? Does not every possibility admit SECT. II. Is not a Revelation desirable, if it can be proved? Does any one object that we have too much light under the Christian Revelation? May not the extreme desirableness of a Revelation be esteemed as some glimpse of its probability? 4 |