A Review of the Evidences of Christianity; In a Series of Lectures, Delivered in Broadway Hall, New York, August, 1829. to Which Is Prefixed, an Extract from Wyttenbach's Opuscula, on the Ancient Notices of the Jewish Nation Previous to (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTURE II. " Prove all things; hoFJ fast that which is good." 1'Thes. v. 21. [FoR what I shall advance in this lecture I am almost wholly indebted to " Philo Veritas," (for so I call my learned friend, it being the name-attached to the Essays, and the most conspicuous by which. he is yet known to the public, ) and, therefore, shall not think it necessary to give credit for any thing except what I find quoted by him. The audience will readily perceive it, should I advance any thing of my own. The.subject now before us is, ] HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. The means of arriving at truth, whether as to past facts of history, or past facts in the common occurrences of life, are the same; and whether they relate to the payment of a sum of money, or the progress, of a revolution, we must depend on the relation of witnesses, or written documents, or on the reasonable conclusions afforded by ascertained collateral facts; that is, on circumstantial evidence. The rules of judging of the value of the evidence offered, is the same, whatever be the object of enquiry. Courts of justice are so much in the habit of discussing the value of evidence offered, that there are a set of rules adopted by the common consent of all legal writers on the subject, which may be regarded as the canons of evidence. lu the British and the American courts, these rules have been laboriously established by repeated discussion, andtrials of their utility. Nor has any branch of the law attracted more (if so much) attention as the law of evidence. It did not begin to be systematically treated in England till the time of Chief Baron Gilbert. The compilations on the subject in the old digests, were meagre, and far from being adequate to the decision of the numerous cases that the prodigious extent of dealing within ...