Strivings For The Faith A Series Of Lectures PDF Download

Excerpt from Strivings for the Faith: A Series of Lectures Three suppositions may possibly be made to account for the facts of the case, without allowing the miraculous element: I. That St. Paul said what he knew to be false, with an intent to deceive. Difficulties of this supposition: (i.) What motive could St. Paul have for thus acting? Possible motives, as the desire of wealth, fame, or power, or the desire to gratify some passion, examined, and shown to be baseless, (ii.) He could have had no reasonable prospect of success in carrying out his imposture a) in relation to the other Apostles; U)in preaching among the Gentiles, and contending (i) with the policy of the magistrates; (2)with the interests of the priests; (3)with the prejudices of the people; (4)with the wisdom of the philosophers. II. That he was an enthusiast, imposed upon by the force of an overheated imagination. But he exhibits none of the marks of an enthusiast, and it is even more difficult on this supposition than on the previous one to account for his life and works. III. That he was deceived by the fraud of others. This supposition shown to be impossible and absurd. Hence we must fall back on the supposition that St. Paul does give an authentic account of his conversion, and we must conclude, therefore, that Christianity is a Divine Revelation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.