[72]
Thus, I conceive that I have shown cause for the opinion that Dr.
Wace's challenge touching the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer,
and the Passion was more valorous than discreet. After all this
discussion, I am still at the agnostic point. Tell me, first, what
Jesus can be proved to have been, said, and done, and I will say
whether I believe him, or in him,[73] or not. As Dr. Wace admits that
I have dissipated his lingering shade of unbelief about the
bedevilment of the Gadarene pigs, he might have done something to help
mine. Instead of that, he manifests a total want of conception of the
nature of the obstacles which impede the conversion of his "infidels."
The truth I believe to be, that the difficulties in the way of
arriving at a sure conclusion as to these matters, from the Sermon on
the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, or any other data offered by the
Synoptic gospels (and _a fortiori_ from the fourth gospel), are
insuperable. Every one of these records is coloured by the
prepossessions of those among whom the primitive traditions arose, and
of those by whom they were collected and edited: and the difficulty of
making allowance for these prepossessions is enhanced by our ignorance
of the exact dates at which the documents were first put together; of
the extent to which they have been subsequently worked over and
interpolated; and of the historical sense, or want of sense, and the
dogmatic tendencies of their compilers and editors.
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