ABSTRACT
The contents of the following Essay will be considered as startling by many, and offensive by more. One of the best apologies I can urge has been brought forward by Dr Conyers Middleton in the Preface to his Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers which are supposed to have subsisted in the Christian Church through several successive centuries.a ‘I persuade myself that the life and faculties of man, at the best but short and limited, cannot be employed more rationally or laudably than in the search of knowledge; and especially of that sort which relates to our duty, and conduces to our happiness. In these enquiries therefore, whenever I perceive any glimmering of truth before me, I readily pursue and endeavour to trace it to its source, without any reserve or caution of pushing the discovery too far, or opening too great a glare of it to the public. I look upon the discovery of anything which is true as a valuable acquisition to society, which / cannot possibly hurt or obstruct the good effect of any other truth whatsoever: for they all partake of one common essence, and necessarily coincide with each other, and, like the drops of rain which fall separately into the river, mix themselves at once with the stream, and strengthen the general current.’
