ON THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY; CONTAINING AN EXAMINATION OF THE SOCIAL SYSTEM, AND OF ALL THE SYSTEMS OF SCEPTICISM OF ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES, HELD IN THE CITY OF CINCINNATI, FOR EIGHT DAYS SUCCESSIVELY, BETWEEN ROBERT OWEN, OF NEW LANARK, SCOTLAND, AND ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, OF BETHANY, VIRGINIA. WITH AN APPENDIX BY THE PARTIES. COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. What, then, is unbelief? "Tis an exploit, A strenuous enterprize. To gain it, man Must burst through every bar of common sense, Who most examine, most believe; Parts, like half sentences, confound. Read His whole volume, sceptic, then reply!-YOUNG. O Lord of hosts! blessed is the man that trusteth in thee!-DAVID. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY R. GROOM BRIDGE, PANYER ALLEY: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO., STATIONERS' HALL COURT; T. KIRK, NOTTING- PREFACE. THERE is a charm in the number three, to which authors, philosophers, poets, and divines are not insensible. Every sentence of a rhetorical cast must have three members, and every noun substantive requires three adjectives to make it expressive, elegant, and sonorous. Hence the good old style of having a preface, introduction, and dedication prefixed to every volume. With the first and second of these we may dispense, as the first speech of each disputant is a sort of preface and introduction for himself. And were I to think of a dedication of this volume, I would be constrained to dedicate it to the whole human family, if I were to be guided by the grand principles of that diffusive benevolence which the side of the question on which I stand suggests. But were I to imitate the inventors of dedications, and select some person to whose auspices I could consign this book, I should be unable to find any one individual to whose pre-eminent virtues I could exclusively inscribe it. But, if either the urbanity, hospitality, and public spirit of a particular city; or, if the orderly behaviour, and christian deportment, of any one congregation, made it necessary for a publisher, such as I am, to inscribe a volume in commendation of one, or other, or both, the city of Cincinnati, and that congregation which for eight days patiently attended upon the discussion, would present claims which neither logic with all its rules of reason, nor rhetoric with all its arts of persuasion, could set aside. But again, something whispers in my ear, if any seven reasons would justify the inscription of this work to any seven gentlemen, to the exclusion of all other persons, for any special attentions paid to the cause, the parties, and the public, the Honourable Judge Burnet, Major Daniel Gano, Colonel Francis Carr, Rev. Timothy Flint, Rev. Oliver Spencer, Henry Starr, Esq. and Colonel Samuel W. Davis, are entitled to it for their attention and dignified manner in which they presided over this discussion. But as there are so many considerations presenting rival calls upon my pen for a special dedication, I must either depart from old usage or take some comprehensive, all-embracing sweep, and dedicate it to every saint and sinner into whose hands it may fall. But I cannot so easily dispense with apologies as with dedications; for the loose and diffuse style of my speeches requires an apology from myself, as well as a liberal share of indulgence from the learned reader. Being always an extemporaneous speaker, and, on this occasion, every speech of mine, with the exception of the first one, being unpremeditated, many redundancies, expletives, and other inaccuracies in arrangement may be expected, and, I hope, pardoned. |