The following is complete list of footnotes from No Apologies:
1 John H. Overton, William Law: Nonjuror and Mystic (London: Longmans, Green, and Co, 1881), p. 280. Susanna’s younger brother John was Chaplain to Dr. Hoadley in 1730, which may explain her specific interest in his theology, (Appendix 4). Also see Hoadly, Benjamin.
2 Susanna Newcome’s name has been spelled in many ways, and is spelled differently almost every time it is in print (Susana, Susannah, Newcomb, Newcombe, Newcomen, Newcomer, Comus, etc.). However, “Susanna Newcome” is the correct spelling as seen on all of her baptism and marriage records, her gravestone, and in her husband’s own hand, inscribed in his copy of Enquiry left to St. John’s College. (Appendix 1)
3 On one document, her baptism date was listed as 1684/5, so it was unclear which year she was born. Fortunately, Margaret Moles, an archivist at the Wiltshire Record Office, was extremely helpful in clearing up the matter: “In England the calendar year starting Jan. 01 was not formally introduced on documents until 1752 – prior to this date the year began on Lady Day (March 25th) – for the period 01 Jan. – 24 Mar. there was often a double indication on documents – for instance 1684/5. Susannah was baptized Feb 11th- this would have been regarded as towards the end of 1684 or the start of 1685 if using the ‘new’ calendar.” On the other document, the date was listed as the “11th of February, in the first year of the reign of King James [II]” who took the throne of February 6, 1685, a mere five days before Susanna was baptized. (Appendix 1)
5 This Thomas appears to have died as a young child, as there was a second child named Thomas born about 6 years later, and only the second one is mentioned in their father’s will. Other omissions from their father’s will are Samuel, and Sarah, who was recorded as being buried in the same year she was born.
7 Robert F. Scott, Admissions to the College of St. John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge, July 1715-November 1767 (Cambridge: University Press, 1903), p. 29, 49, 63, 133, 236, 343, 399, 427-429, 603, 627-628, 688-689; University of Oxford and Joseph Foster, Alumni Oxonienses: S-Z (Oxford: Parker and Company, 1892), p. 1403. (Appendix 4)
9 Alumni Cantabrigienses: A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates– and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900, John Venn/ John Archibald Venn Cambridge University Press > (10 volumes 1922 to 1953) Part I. Earliest times to 1752 Vol. iii. Kaile – Ryves, (1924) p 246. Reverend George Hennessy, London Diocesan Clergy Succession From the Earliest Time to the Year 1898 (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1898), p. 196.
10 Appendix 6
11 James B. Mullinger, St. John’s College (London: F.E. Robinson & Company, 1901), p. 224
12 Thomas Baker, B.D., (1656-1740), Ejected Fellow, First Historian of Cambridge
13 John Nichols and Samuel Bentley, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, Vol. 1 (London: Nichols, Son, and Bentley, 1812), p. 556
14 Either Denne or Shrubsole was the one historian who favored the Doctor. Samuel Denne and William Shrubsole, The History and Antiquities of Rochester and Its Environs (Rochester: T. Fisher, 1772), p. 197.
15 Nichols and Bentley, pp. 557 – 561
16 Nichols and Bentley, p. 556.
17 Denne and Shrubsole, p. 197.
18 Nichols and Bentley, p. 559
19 A contemporary of Susanna’s – the second wife of King Louis XIV of France who exercised quite a bit of political and religious influence on the court at the time, (1635-1719).
20 Nichols and Bentley, p. 559
21 Appendix 6
22 Thomas Baker, B.D., (1656-1740), Ejected Fellow, First Historian of Cambridge. He was not extremely close to the Newcomes, but was very fond of Susanna, even leaving her a ring of guinea in his will.
23 Baker’s copy of Enquiry, with his notes, can be found today in the Special Collections section of St. John’s College Library at Cambridge University, as well as another copy that states it was “Given to St. John’s College Library by the Author Susanna Newcome.” (S.11.7, Ee.17.16(1), O.10.58). John and Susanna did not have any children; therefore, 60 of their most precious books were donated to the College Library when he died, (Appendix 6).
24 Peter Linehan, St John’s College, Cambridge: A History (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2011), p. 185
25 David McKitterick, A History of Cambridge University Press: Volume 2, Scholarship and Commerce, 1698-1872 (Cambridge: University Press, 1998), p. 119; Cambridge Journal FN #30
26 McKitterick, p. 119
27 Nichols and Bentley, p. 481
28 Samuel Butler and Dr. Zachary Grey, Hudibras, Vol.1 (London: Charles & Henry Baldwyn, 1819), p. 108, (Appendix 7).
29 Nichols and Bentley, p. 186
30 Mullinger, pp. 223-224
31 Nichols and Bentley, p. 559
32 Birch, Rev. Thos. The Works of Catharine Cockburn (London: J. and P. Knapton, 1751), p. 19.
33 Vol. 2, Article 24; and Vol. 9, Article 10, p. 128.
34 Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 26: Volume 26: Catalogues of Books. Edited by Peter J. Thuesen (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), pp. 99-100.
35 18th century term for clergyman or theologians, most often from the Anglican or Presbyterian tradition.
36 Denne and Shrubsole, p. 197
37 Appendix 8
38 Appendix 9
39 “Ecclesiastical Buildings: Parish Churches,” in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the City of Cambridge (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1959), 254- 298. British History Online, accessed October 17, 2016.
40 Linehan, p. 185 and “Susanna Newcome”, billiongraves.com, Accessed October 19, 2016.
41 Cambridge Chronicle 26 Mar 1763 No. 22
42 Thomas Baker and John E.B. Mayor, History of the College of St. John the Evangelist, Cambridge (Cambridge: University Press, 1869), p. 1027.
43 Walpole, Horace. Private Correspondence of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford: Now First Collected, Vol. 3 (London: Rodwell and Martin, 1820), p. 412.
44 Nichols and Bentley, pp. 481, 559-560
45 Robins, George.The Collection of Rare Prints & Illustrated Works, Removed from Strawberry Hill … as Originally Collected by Horace Walpole … Which Will Be Sold by Auction, by G. Robins, 13th June, 1842 and 9 Following Days. [With] Aedes Strawberrianae. Names of Purchasers and the Prices to the … Catalogue of the Collection of Early Drawings [&c.] (London, Smith and Robins, 1842), p. 64.
46 Smith, John C. British Messotinto Portraits; Being a Descriptive Catalogue of These Engravings from the Introduction of the Art to the Early Part of the Present Century, Vol. 4 (London: H. Sotheran & co, 1883), p. 1740.
47 British Museum Online, https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1841-1211-32
48 The focus of Newcome’s first edition published four years prior in 1728 was less on God revealing Himself to man and more focused on man’s pursuit of pleasure over pain, and the evidence for Christianity based on prophecies of Jesus. When Matthew Tindal’s work came out two years later stating that God would not utilize special divine action to reveal Himself to mankind, Newcome saw a need to expand her third enquiry to answer Tindal’s claims.
49 The universe is not eternal and has a beginning, and the Beginner of it is outside of it and existed before it.
50 Based on the attributes or characteristics of the system of the universe, we can assert there are specific attributes or characteristics that the Cause and Author of it must have possessed.
51 When Newcome uses the term ‘natural religion’, it is referring to the idea of general revelation, or the way God reveals Himself through nature. It is not to be confused with the later version of the term that is associated with Pantheism (God IS nature) and/or Deism (the idea that we do not need special revelation like the Bible, miracles, or Jesus). She is stating that as we observe nature and the universe, we can come to certain conclusions about God’s attributes because the creation will somewhat resemble its Creator. God has created the universe in such a way that it allows us to know things about Him. Romans 1:19-20 states, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse,” (ESV). Also, Psalm 19:1-4 declares, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world,” (ESV).
52 Here Susanna is explaining that she spent more time developing what I would consider an argument from desire in her second edition. This will be discussed more in depth when it comes up in later pages, but in general, it is the idea that if God is good and content in and of Himself, and humans are made in His image for the purpose of having a relationship with Him, humans will naturally desire goodness (morality) and happiness (satisfaction for their desires).
53 This is referencing the idea that Tindal was pushing a form of Deism in his writings, that no special revelation is needed to truly know God. Tindal and Newcome both lived at the time where the focus on Christ and his free gift of grace in the Reformation was giving way to the Enlightenment and higher criticism of the Bible and other forms of special revelation, including the necessity of Jesus Christ himself. He also seems to imply that God is simply too transcendent and either cannot, or will not, reveal Himself to mankind in any way. Newcome finds it very suitable to God that He would utilize miracles as well as nature to reveal Himself to mankind.
54 It appears here that Newcome shares some ideas with philosopher John Locke, and these will be explored in more depth as they come up in her work. Her argument that there is no proof of God available to us before He reveals Himself to us is much more nuanced and needs to be read in full before being judged.
55 This statement right here is one of the reasons Susanna is one of my heroes. She is humble enough to know that she could be wrong, and if it is proved that she is incorrect, she requests to be ignored. Many humans today could learn from her example.
56 Unproven statements, concepts, or theories
57 Observation is the key to the scientific method, and therefore, the ability to gain knowledge about the world. God has revealed Himself in such a way that when we do look for Him, we can and will find Him.
58 The foresight of Susanna on the condition of the church here was remarkable. Her last statement is an encouragement for those who oppose Christianity to make sure they are doing so because they examined it closely in a reasonable manner, and not reject it because the leaders of the church argue over the truthfulness of the texts themselves. Often, unbelievers look at the church and all of the infighting and squabbles over the interpretation of texts, and decide that if the Christians cannot even agree on what they believe, why should they waste their time with it? Instead of fighting amongst one another, the church should be focused on evangelism to the unbeliever, and use reason and evidence to give the case for Christianity being a worthy endeavor.
59 This is the classical correspondence theory of truth dating back to the philosophers of ancient Greece. In his Metaphysics, Aristotle wrote, “To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true; so that he who says of anything that it is, or that it is not, will say either what is true or what is false,” (4.7). In modern vernacular, truth is that which corresponds to reality, that which corresponds to the facts, or that which portrays the way things actually are. Dr. Groothuis writes, “A belief or statement is true only if it matches with, reflects or corresponds to the reality it refers to. For a statement to be true it must be factual. Facts determine the truth or falsity of a belief or a statement. It is the nature and meaning of truth to be fact dependent… A statement is never true simply because someone thinks it or utters it. We may be entitled to our own opinions, but we are not entitled to our own facts. Believing a statement is one thing; that statement being true is another.” (Douglas Groothuis. Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith. Kindle Locations 1294-1298. Kindle Edition.)
60 Newcome’s definition of ‘Facts’: the existence, nature, relations, powers, etc. of beings or things as they really are. Here she is giving three types of evidence that exists, beginning with the most obvious – observation: using our eyes, ears, etc. to gather facts about the world that surrounds us.
61 Experimentation: Scientific method, research, etc. This can include making connections between pieces of information or gathered facts, whether it be combining them, relating them to each other, or being inspired to produce abstract ideas in the absence of specifics (innovation).
62 Moral Testimony: Eyewitnesses, primary sources
63 If we did not experience the event ourselves, or prove it through experimentation, the most we can be certain of is the likelihood of someone’s moral integrity, or a probability that something they said is true (the following point IV).
64 When someone agrees with a statement they have no evidence for, and cannot prove, it is a belief or opinion, not fact. Fact is something that is proven to be true by evidence or experimentation.
65 When what we believe reflects how things really are, or facts, then what we believe is true.
66 When what we believe does not accurately reflect how things really are, or facts, then what we believe is false. Evidence, not opinion, is the determining factor whether something is true or not, and finding evidence requires a careful examination of the facts.
67 When a person has more pleasure than pain in life, they are considered (or are assumed to be) happy.
68 When a person has more pain than pleasure in life, they are considered (or are assumed to be) miserable.
69 Even if the original act brings pleasure in the moment, if it is bad for you in the long term, it counts as pain (e.g. eating junk food, smoking, etc.).
70 Even if the original act brings pain in the moment, if it is good for you in the long term, it counts as pleasure (e.g. getting an immunization shot, surgery, exercise, etc.).
71 This concept of ‘perfect happiness’ comes up later as the driving force behind Enquiry 2: After Happiness. It is the desire of mankind, the satisfaction of which can only be found in God. Newcome often uses the word ‘felicity’ in her original manuscript to describe it.
72 If pleasure is better than pain, then sensible beings (those in their right mind) will desire pleasure and avoid pain.
73 I have coined this particular concept, The Principle of Fulfillability. Rational humans only desire things that will positively satisfy them, and there must be a reason they desire those things in the first place. If humans were created by God to possess certain things, then it makes sense they would desire them. When they find that satisfaction, it ‘fits’ because it was meant for them to possess it in the first place. Rational humans (humans in their right mind) only have desires that are capable of being fulfilled (by things that exist), because if the objects of their desires never existed, they would not know to desire them in the first place.
74 Before there were laws and societal commandments, sensible humans realized that certain actions/consequences (those that brought pleasure) were better for them than others (those that brought pain) because happiness felt naturally right and misery felt naturally wrong. This was the process of humans learning what was good for them through trial and error, similar to a toddler who will never touch a hot stove-top after being burned by accidentally touching it once.
75 This idea of a fit-ness and unfit-ness of things is an assumption that there is a place for these things to fit, or not fit, into. It appears that Newcome’s denial of innate ideas is similar to Locke’s in that there is not a complete emptiness of the mind, but that God created us with a template of sorts for the later-acquired experiential content to plug into. “While the mind may be a blank slate in regard to content, it is plain that Locke thinks we are born with a variety of faculties to receive, and abilities to manipulate or process the content once we acquire it,” (William Uzgalis. “John Locke”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2016 Edition. Edward N. Zalta, ed. URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/locke/That is, we are created with the potential to learn and innovate.
76 Actions that bring lasting happiness and pleasure are good or right.
77 Actions that bring lasting misery and pain are bad or wrong.
78 Truth ‘fits’ or feels right to a sensible being. Inclinations: the actions we tend toward.
79 False information does not fit and feels wrong to a sensible being.
80 If truth is right and brings happiness, and falsehood is wrong and brings misery, then a sensible human who desires pleasure over pain will try and figure out what is true in order to have lasting happiness.
81 If a human being wants lasting happiness, and truth brings happiness, they need to know what is actually true, and a sensible being would base their decision on evidence or proof, specifically: observation, experimentation, and moral testimony.
82 To reason: to think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic.
83 If one has any sense at all, they will pursue that which brings happiness, not misery.
84 The pursuit of whatever brings happiness (which Newcome has previously determined as ‘truth’) is a reasonable/rational pursuit.
85 If one does not pursue truth, they lack reason/rationality.
86 If one does not assent to (or agree with) that truth once it is found, they are unreasonable/irrational (especially if it can bring lasting happiness and they refuse to even examine it – point 11).
87 What type of proof/evidence is needed (and can be sensibly expected) when determining the veracity (or truthfulness) of various claims and propositions? The same type of evidence (e.g. just experimentation) cannot be used as proof for all truth claims, as specific propositions need specific kinds of evidence to determine their truthfulness (experimentation or observation or moral testimony).
88 If an event happened before one’s existence, they cannot utilize observation or experimentation to prove its actuality; they must rely on the historical records and sources that pre-date themselves.
89 If moral testimony is all that is available (or possible) based on the specific event, it is irrational to expect to be able to use experimentation or observation.
90 One who agrees with the evidence (that is actually available or possible) is rational, and one who disagrees with the evidence (because they desire evidence that is unavailable or impossible) is irrational.
91 If Christianity is true, then joy (a feeling of great pleasure and happiness) is attainable. Also, if Christianity is true, the fact that man pursues happiness and pleasure makes sense considering he was created in God’s image. Groothuis writes, “Given the Christian hypothesis that humans are ‘deposed royalty’ – both image bearers of God and fallen from grace – this desire for and limited sense of the transcendent must be viewed as marred by sin. The desire to transcend one’s situation, to experience glory or joy, are not pure desires, but rather a mixture of the soul desiring its proper divine fulfillment and the flesh desiring to transcend a fallen world in any way possible,” (Douglas Groothuis. Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith. Kindle Locations 3923-3925. Kindle Edition.) We inherently know there is something more, something better. This could be a better state of being – one that is free of sin and includes immortality/eternal life. We were created in an absolutely perfect and moral state of being, and to live eternally in that state. The Fall of Man (in Genesis 3) tarnished that perfection and immorality, but we still yearn for it because God has put eternity in our hearts, (Ecclesiastes 3:11, HCSB). If we are beings somehow imbued with an innate sense of the hope of eternal life and we lost access to it in the Fall, it would make sense that we would desire it. Gregory of Nyssa wrote that, “The more we believe that ‘the Good’, on account of its nature, lies far beyond the limits of our knowledge, the more we experience a sense of sorrow that we have to be separated from this ‘Good’, which is both great and desirable, and yet cannot be embraced fully by our minds. Yet we mortals once had a share in this ‘Good’, which so eludes our attempts to comprehend it,” (McGrath, Alister E. The Christian Theology Reader. Malden MA: Blackwell, 2007; p. 412). Humans need God to attain true joy and eternal life, for no other being besides a Supremely powerful, benevolent, Creator God could bestow those particular wants on humanity. Dr. Geisler states, “Few theists would rest their case for God on any one argument…But if there is a real need for God, it is far more reasonable to believe that there is a real God who can really fill this real need,” (Geisler, Norman L. Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1999; p. 282).
92 Here Newcome is offering an earlier version of C.S. Lewis’ argument that either Christianity is the most important thing, or it’s not important at all. If Christianity is the way to perfect happiness, then it is unreasonable to not examine it at the least.
93 Newcome explains that there are conditions on attaining pure joy. If Christianity is true, then belief is required to obtain its blessings, as stated in the Scriptures. If pure joy and perfect happiness are only obtained through Christ, and one truly wants to be happy, it is unreasonable for them not to examine Christianity.
94 After defining her terms and offering propositions for consideration, Newcome begins her argument in Enquiry One with the case for the existence of God, then later in Enquiry Three, answers Tindal’s book by giving the case that it is reasonable that God would reveal Himself to mankind.
95 Again this is not a complete emptiness, just an assertion that we are not born with an inherent knowledge of proof for God. The template for processing information and potential for humans to reason and be creative is there. This idea of ‘ascending’ is that the mind will believe in God once one uses their experience to examine the evidence that exists for God. Once they experience this process, and reason through it, it will ‘fit’ in their mind.
96 This is the point of Christian apologetics – to get man to look around and wonder why there is something rather than nothing.
97 Once man observes that there is something rather than nothing, the existence of a material world begs the question of how it all got here. There are three possible ways something can exist: self-caused, no cause, or caused by another. The notion of self-causation is illogical and self-refuting due to the fact that nothing can exist outside of itself long enough to do the causing. It cannot exist and not-exist at the same time. Therefore the only two options left to explore are: no cause, or caused by another. If there is no cause, it must be eternal as Newcome states, meaning it was always here. If it has no cause, it cannot have a beginning because there is no beginner accounted for, therefore it must have always existed. The only option left is that it was caused by another.
98 Here Newcome makes one of the earliest known (after Aristotle and Aquinas) arguments for causation. She appeals to the idea of Aristotelian physics in that if the universe is not infinite/necessary/eternal, it has to have a cause (an unmoved mover). In his Metaphysics, Aristotle writes, “It is obvious that there are principles and causes which are generable and destructible apart from the actual processes of generation and destruction; for if this is not true, everything will be of necessity: that is, there must necessarily be some cause, other than [an] accidental [one],” (Metaphysics VI, 1027a29).
99 Does what we observe have evidence of being eternal? Or did it have a beginning, and therefore a Beginner (a Cause)?
100 If everything that has ever existed (every “effect”) has been observed to have a cause, then it is unreasonable to say that if one goes back far enough into the past, there will cease to be a cause in that chain. If A caused B, and B caused C, and so on and so forth throughout the entire alphabet, then ultimately A caused Z.
101 If man has no cause, then he is eternal, and therefore immortal and indestructible. However as Newcome goes on to point out, we know that is not true, as humans die all the time, occasionally in massive numbers.
102 Therefore, mankind is contingent in that it relies on something ‘other’ and outside of itself to continue its existence. If it can cease or end (through death), then it also had a beginning.
103 Here Newcome shows a keen understanding of Newton’s laws of motion considering that Newton himself had just published on the laws of motion a mere thirty years prior. There’s a possibility that her long relationship with the University of Cambridge gave her access to Newton’s writings earlier than others.
104 A First Cause/Actuality/Energy. Aquinas enhanced Aristotle’s argument for an unmoved mover in his Summa Theologica: “Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another…. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality…. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e., that it should move itself. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently no other mover…. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God,” (19:12,13).
105 Law of Inertia: an object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.
106 The condition of being human and limited.
107 Finitude, dependency, not necessary.
108 Impossible – a beginning must have a beginner, a cause.
109 Something that is eternal cannot have contingency; infinite-ness and finite-ness cannot co-exist in the same being/thing.
110 A succession or chain of finite beings cannot exist infinitely.
111 If a being is finite, it makes sense (the concept fits in one’s mind) that it has to rely on something else (something infinite) for its existence.
112 If a finite being needs a cause, the cause must desire to give existence to the finite being, and it brings the finite being pleasure (life/happiness) to receive it.
113 An infinite regress of finite beings is impossible.
114 Example: humans and animals need things that nature provides (plants/crops for food, spring water to drink, trees for oxygen, etc.) to continue a healthy existence. If there existed nothing that needed oxygen or water, it would be strange for them to exist themselves, as they would have no purpose.
115 Irreducible complexity: “a single system, which is composed of several interacting parts, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to cease functioning.” Michael J. Behe, Evidence for Intelligent Design from Biochemistry; from a speech delivered at Discovery Institute’s God & Culture Conference, August 10, 1996.
116 Intelligent design
117 This Cause itself cannot have parts either. This is known as the doctrine of Divine Simplicity: “God is not made up of a conglomeration of pieces. He certainly has no physical parts. And in that sense [He] is remarkably simple.” (William Lane Craig on Divine Simplicity) However, while not separate, God does have distinctions within His being (e.g. the Trinity).
118 I would add here that the Cause not only needs to be external and preexisting to the changes, but unchangeable itself as well (the latter criteria being one the God of the Bible fits as well as the two former). This is known as Immutability, the doctrine that God cannot change. Leftow, Brian, “Immutability”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/immutability/.
119 It must be a pre-existing cause to the entire system.
120 It must also be a First Cause (eternal).
121 You can’t go from Actuality (fully simple with no possibility of changing/eternal) to Potentiality (the possibility of or potential to change/temporal).
122 If humans were eternal (no cause), they would not be finite (able to change from the state of living to a state of death.)
123 This pre-existing, First cause necessary to the system of the universe is exactly the point she is trying to prove.
124 This is known as the Cosmological Argument: Everything that begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist; therefore, the universe has a cause.
125 A thing that is eternal cannot be destroyed (that which has no cause to its existence can have no end to its existence).
126 Here Newcome references Dr. Cheyne’s Philosophical Principles of Religion (1st ed. 1705, 2nd ed. 1715) in a footnote. After reading both side-by-side, the editor can confirm that she relied quite heavily on this work of his. In it, he himself also quotes Newton extensively, which is not all that odd considering they were acquaintances. In Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton, the biographer, Richard S. Westfall, recounts the nature of Newton and Cheyne’s relationship. “Some years ago, Newton had loaned out a manuscript with some general theorems about squaring curves, and was later met with some things copied out of it in the writings of George Cheyne, and so he decided then to make it public. According to David Gregory, this was what provoked Mr. Newton to publish his Opticks. When Cheyne came to London from Scotland, Dr. Arbuthnot introduced him to Newton and told him about a book Cheyne had written but could not afford to publish [The Inverse Method of Fluxions]. Newton thought Cheyne’s manuscript was “not intolerable” and supposedly offered Cheyne a bag of money to publish, but Cheyne refused. After this, Newton refused to see him anymore,” (Cambridge: University Press, 1980, p. 639). Also interesting to note is that Cheyne was the doctor of Newton’s close friend, Alexander Pope.
127 Law of Entropy: everything tends toward disorder. The amount of usable energy in the universe is getting smaller and smaller. If the universe were eternal, it would have an unlimited amount of energy, or have reached an equilibrium where everything stops breaking down. Many new theories are popping up (flat/open universe, string theory, multiverses) that disagree that we live in a closed universe because of the fact that material heavenly bodies keep moving further and further away from each other. However, just because things are still moving apart, it does not mean that there is a limit for that movement to be reached sometime in the future. It just means we have not observed it being reached yet.
128 While Newcome did rely heavily on Cheyne’s understanding of Newtonian physics, it is clear here that she did depart from Cheyne and had her own mind regarding Newton’s theories. While Cheyne argued that life cannot be created from non-living matter, and stated that life “must have existed from all eternity”, Newton and Newcome both assert a First Cause.
129 Cosmic microwave background radiation, or the “Big Bang Echo” was discovered in 1941 by Andrew McKellar, and confirmed by Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson in 1964.
130 Now that she has proven that the universe did not exist eternally and had a cause, it is time to argue what type of cause that must be.
131 A First Cause: an eternal being to which every chain of causes must ultimately go back (the unmoved mover).
132 The universe could have started with some event (a Big Bang perhaps), but the cause of that event must still be eternal (a First Cause). Again, if A caused B, and B caused C, then A caused C. Otherwise, you end up with an infinite regress (a sequence of reasoning or justification that can never logically come to an end).
133 We should only make assumptions based on evidence.
134 Just because we can reason to a First Cause, the evidence presented thus far does not tell us who or what this Being is.
135 Knowing the effects (the material world) or actions (creating the material world) of a First Cause does not tell us who or what this Being is.
136 However, even if we cannot determine who or what this Being is, we can ascertain (figure out) some things about it (its attributes).
137 By studying creation (the material world/effect), we can learn (or make assumptions) about the Being that caused it.
138 Teleological Argument: the argument for the existence of God from the evidence of order (design) in nature.
139 Fine-Tuning: “According to many physicists, the fact that the universe is able to support life depends delicately on various of its fundamental characteristics, notably on the form of the laws of nature, on the values of some constants of nature, and on aspects of the universe’s conditions in its very early stages.” (Friederich, Simon, “Fine-Tuning”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).) Basically, the world is fine-tuned for life.
140 Common sense dictates that effect implies Cause, design implies Designer, and fine-tuning implies a meticulous Tuner. To deny common sense in these situations simply because of the implications of where they might lead (a supernatural God) is to not behave consistently as a seeker of truth.
141 Non-information cannot give rise to information. Intelligence cannot come from non-intelligence. This would be an effect without a cause.
142 The First Cause must be omnipotent (all-powerful)
143 2 Peter 1:3, 2 Cor. 3:4-6, Heb. 1:3, Col. 1:17
144 Meaning able to create and sustain themselves apart from His power.
145 Omniscient: knowing everything
146 The First Cause must also be all-knowing and completely wise, choosing the best scenario or most effective solution in every situation.
147 One of our main priorities as a human is self-preservation or a continuance of life.
148 He gave us life, the potential to have a joyful one, and the ability to preserve it (i.e. not die).
149 Able to produce a desired effect
150 Humans prefer life to death.
151 Composed, made up of
152 God made it so that even with the incredible variety of different human beings in the world, they would still desire to have relationships with each other in order to continue the existence of the human race.
153 Whether existence is better than non-existence is unable to be proven with the evidence we have because no one who has ceased to exist has come back to tell us if it is preferable or not. The wisdom of God in continuing our existence seems obvious to a sensible being.
154 This is known as Aseity: the quality or state of being self-derived or self-originated; specifically: the absolute self-sufficiency, independence, and autonomy of God (Merriam-Webster).
155 If God is eternal, He cannot end/die (See. Gen. 21:33; Deut. 32:40, 33:27; Is. 40:28, 41:4, 44:6; Ps. 90:2; Heb. 1:12; 1 Peter 1:23; 1 Tim. 1:17; Rev. 1:8, 10:6).
156 The doctrine of Immutability: not capable of change (See Ps. 55:19, 102:27; Mal. 3:6; Heb. 1:12, 13:8; Jas. 1:17).
157 God cannot be contingent (unnecessary) and a First Cause (necessary) at the same time.
158 God cannot have the potential to change either (see previous footnote on the topic of Actuality v. Potentiality).
159 Divine contentedness: the Triune God is self-content (a Being in communion with Himself) and does not need beings outside the Godhead to feel content. God always has been, currently is, and always will be, perfectly happy (John 1:1, 17:13).
160 Acts 17:25
161 This naturally raises questions about those passages in Scripture where God/Jesus feels grief/sadness. John Piper explains it well here: “God’s heart is capable of complex combinations of emotions infinitely more remarkable than ours. He may well be capable of lamenting over something He chose to bring about. And God may be capable of looking back on the very act of bringing something about and lamenting that act in one regard, while affirming it as best in another regard… God is able to feel sorrow for an act in view of foreknown evil — foreknown pain and sorrow and misery — and yet go ahead and do it for wise reasons.” (https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/why-does-god-regret-and-repent-in-the-bible)
162 God does not lack anything, nor does He need anything outside of Himself. As a compound unity, or Tri-unity (three persons in one nature), He is a Being in communion with Himself throughout eternity. He did not create humans because He was lonely or lacked relationship. He was, is, and always will be a perfectly happy Being, otherwise He would not be God because He would lack something. This begs the question of why God created humans at all. Isaiah 43:6b-7 states, “…bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made,” (ESV). Genesis 1:27 states that we are made in the image of God. The point of an image is to project the essence of the original. The earth is filled with billions of images of the living God, it is literally filled with His glory, (Is. 6:3). Also see Romans 1:20-23, Eph. 1:5-6.
163 Here Newcome is referring to Omni-Benevolence, the idea that God is all-loving or infinitely good. If He were not perfectly good, He could not be God.
164 Again, this harkens back to the idea of God temporarily allowing painful things if it is for the eternal good. Romans 8:28 states, “All things work together for the good.” It does not say that everything is good all of the time. We live in a fallen world, so pain is to be expected, but God has an ultimate plan for the good of the world. Also see 1 Peter 1:3-5, 5:6-10.
165 God must will happiness for His creatures, otherwise He would be acting out of character which is the one thing He cannot do, because if He willed anything but happiness, He would not be perfectly happy Himself, and therefore, not God.
166 This is why God must be all-loving or infinitely good to be God. If He were not perfectly good, He would not be the First Cause of all that exists, because good exists. If He was not good, then there would be an effect without a cause, which is impossible. And if He is perfectly good, or all-loving, it is inherent in the definition of love to will it for those who are weaker than Himself, or for those who are dependent on Him, as well. If God did not will happiness for us, He would not be all-loving. Further, we would not have happiness or love at all if love itself had never manifested from somewhere. However, since we do have it, it must have come from, or originated from, a pure source, namely God Himself.
167 God cannot be happy Himself if His creations were not ultimately designed to have happiness. This end goal of the happiness of creation will culminate in the elimination of sin and the perfect happiness that comes from eternal life with God forever.
168 Not only can we show that God is a good God because He Himself is perfectly happy and therefore wills it for His creation, we can also prove that God is good by examining His works. A posteriori basically means “after the fact”. It is a method of gaining knowledge about something by observing its characteristics as an effect, and then attributing those same characteristics to its cause. To borrow a phrase, ‘the apple does not fall far from the tree.’
169 Newcome is referring here to the earlier mentioned concept that we live longer the more we avoid things that are bad for us. God made the things that will hurt us, hurtful, so we would not continue to pursue them. This is similar to the also earlier mentioned idea that once a child burns their hand by touching a hot stove, they will likely never do it again. Similarly, while something like medicine may be good for us, if we abuse it, it will harm us, and that pain is a warning that we have not utilized it in the way it was intended to be used and we should stop. Many people do not believe in God or refuse to follow Him because this wisdom can make Him seem like a cosmic killjoy. However, God does not give us laws for no reason; He instructs, chastens, and corrects us because He loves us, not unlike our parents who force us to eat our veggies instead of candy for dinner, and tell us to look both ways before running over to our friend’s house across the street. It is because they love us and want the best for us that they give us boundaries and teach us to make good choices. Proverbs 3:11-12 (NIV) states, “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as afather the son he delights in.” The author of Hebrews expands on this proverb by writing, “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it,” (Hebrews 12:7-11, NIV).
170 Here is the evidence that God is a good Being: He created pleasure to bring happiness, and pain to bring misery, so that they could act as signals to teach us what is good, and what is bad for us. He designed the world so that it inherently teaches us how to pursue and obtain ultimate happiness, and avoid misery. He was considering us and anticipating our fallen human nature from the very beginning of Creation, and therefore built in safeguards to help us find happiness and pleasure even in a fallen world. He also built in a sense of pleasure that is to arise when we plan or bring happiness to others, and a sense of pain when we plan or bring misery to others. It is an inherent moral compass to tell us to be good to our fellow man.
171 Here Newcome is referring to the idea of guilt and conscience. Of course, this cannot apply to those who are not of sound mind, and therefore psychopaths and sociopaths can be excluded. However, any human of sound mind (or what Newcome refers to as ‘sensible beings’) is going to applaud an action that brings happiness or pleasure, and will always feel remorse over an action that brings misery.
172 C.S. Lewis called this The Law of Human Nature. He writes, “If we do not believe in decent behavior, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for not having behaved decently? The truth is, we believe in decency so much–we feel the Rule or Law pressing on us so–that we cannot bear to face the fact that we are breaking it, and consequently we try to shift the responsibility. For you notice that it is only for our bad behavior that we find all these explanations… human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it… Supposing you hear a cry for help from a man in danger. You will probably feel two desires–one a desire to give help (due to your [social/relational] herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self-preservation). But you will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them… [In musical terms] the Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys. Another way of seeing that the Moral Law is not simply one of our instincts is this: If two instincts are in conflict, and there is nothing in a creature’s mind except those two instincts, obviously the stronger of the two must win. But at those moments when we are most conscious of the Moral Law, it usually seems to be telling us to side with the weaker of the two impulses. You probably want to be safe much more than you want to help the man who is drowning, but the Moral Law tells you to help him all the same.” (Mere Christianity, Harper San Francisco: 2001, p. 26-29)
173 Omnipresent: present everywhere at the same time.
174 Similar to a pre-programmed robot
175 We must be free because if God controlled us, He would be to blame for our sin and error. This is impossible if He is in fact God, because to be God requires complete and perfect holiness, which cannot be near sin. Newcome goes on to explain that the idea that a holy God could cause us to sin is illogical.
176 If man has free will, then God is a free agent as well, because you cannot have an effect without a cause, and freedom had to originate somewhere, or with Someone.
177 The next section is on whether or not God has actually revealed Himself to humankind. This section explains that if God did indeed reveal Himself to mankind (in the form of His Son and His Word) and that message included prescriptions for or instructions in righteousness, and is proven to be the Truth, then any contrary belief or practice “revealed” afterwards should be rejected as false.
178 Simply stated, sinning is not good for us and if we chose to engage in activities that impair our judgment, we not only displease God, but we will also make ourselves miserable because as mentioned before, if God says something is not allowed, it is probably not good for us.
179 In the Psalms, David writes how God skillfully wrought him in the womb similar to the way an embroiderer designs and weaves a tapestry. God designed and created humans in His image and our bodies are meant to be a house for the Holy Spirit to dwell in. Therefore, while we are free to harm ourselves and even take our own lives, it is an act of blatant rebellion against God and His marvelous work, (Psalm 139:13-16, NKJV). 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 states, “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s,” (NKJV). Also see Proverbs 11:17.
180 This concept of acting justly and doing what’s right comes from Micah 6:8, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
181 Here, writing about individual rights, Newcome is once again clearly influenced by John Locke, the very same man that influenced Thomas Jefferson when writing the Declaration of Independence more than 50 years after Susanna’s book was first published. In his Second Treatise of Government (1690: Ch. 2, Sect. 6), Locke writes, “But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of license: though man in that state have an uncontrollable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it. The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions: for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order, and about his business; they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another’s pleasure: and being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us, that may authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another’s uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for ours. Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station willfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.”
182 To know the will of God, we must always refer to the Scriptures. For this specific issue, see Galatians 5:13-26 and Exodus 20:1-17.
183 “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it,” Proverbs 3:27, ESV.
184 Ephesians 6:1-4, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise), ‘that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.’ ‘Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord’,” (ESV).
185 Malachi 2:16, Matthew 5:31-32, 19:6-9
186 Numbers 30:2, James 5:12, Matthew 5:33-37, Ecclesiastes 5:4-5.
187 Romans 13:7-8, Luke 6:38.
188 If doing that which is right makes man miserable, and doing what is wrong brings man happiness, it could indeed be said that God acted illogically when He ordered things and it would be a contradiction to His character. However this is not the case.
189 Simply stated, if you are good, you will be happy. If you are evil, you will be miserable. Even if this is not the case materially, it will at least be true metaphysically (i.e. you may not be rich, but your conscience will be clean. See 1 Peter 3:17).
190 Proverbs 3:27, Psalm 37:3, Galatians 6:10, Luke 6:27-28, 1 Thessalonians 5:15, Ecclesiastes 3:12.
191 Man may not always have the ability or wisdom to do the right thing or do good in every situation, but regardless of his limitations, he should always have good will, the desire or want to do good, and possess a charitable heart and spirit towards others. This is how we reflect Christ and embody what He would do, and ultimately glorify God with our lives: to simply love others with a pure heart and want the best for them.
192 James 1:26-27, Matthew 25:35-40.
193 Here Newcome switches to discussing man’s relation to animals, and how they are to be treated. See Genesis 1:26-28, 2:19-20, and Psalm 8:6. We need to reflect God in how He manages and never misuses or mistreats His creation (Psalm 36:6, 145:9, 147:9, Matthew 6:26, Luke 12:6,).
194 At first, man was not to eat animals, but instead God provided plants for them to eat, (Genesis 1:29, 9:1-3).
195 Genesis 3:21
196 Proverbs 12:10, 27:23, Exodus 23:5, Deuteronomy 22:4, 25:4, Numbers 22:32, Isaiah 66:3, 32:20.
197 If God is real, and our Creator, and is the satisfaction of our desires and can bring us pure and ultimate happiness, but requires of us certain tasks – such as learning about Him and knowing Him intimately – then it is His job to make them known to us, and our job to complete them. Newcome follows this up with 13 different tasks that the Christian should pay heed to and obey.
198 It does not affect God negatively or cause Him harm if we do not worship or even acknowledge Him. However, as Creator He still deserves our praise and obedience.
199 1 Peter 5:5-6
200 Psalm 100:4, Philippians 4:6-7, James 1:17.
201 Proverbs 15:33, 22:4
202 Psalm 27:14, 37:7, Proverbs 14:29, 16:32, Isaiah 30:18, Ephesians 4:2, Romans 8:25, 12:12; 2 Peter 3:9, Matthew 6:25-34.
203 Proverbs 3:5-6, 16:9; 1 Chronicles 5:20, Psalm 56:11, 62:8; Isaiah 25:9, 48:17; Romans 4:5, 15:13; Genesis 18:19, Jeremiah 10:23.
204 1 Thessalonians 5:18, Ephesians 5:15-17, Hebrews 10.
205 Hebrews 13:20-21, Micah 6:8
206 He is Infinite (Col. 1:17, Ps. 147:5), Immutable (Mal. 3:6, Jas. 1:17), Self-Sufficient (Jn. 5:26), Omnipotent (Ps. 33:6, Job 11:7-11, 2 Cor. 6:18, Jer. 32:17), Omniscient (Is. 46:9-10, 55:8-9), Omnipresent (Ps. 139:7-10, Jer. 23:23-24), Wise (Rom. 11:33, 1 Cor. 2:7), Faithful (Deut. 7:9, Josh. 21:45, 2 Tim. 2:13, Rom. 3:3, Ps. 33:4, Rev. 19:11), Benevolent (Ps. 25:8, 34:8, 106:1, 145:9, 1 Chr. 16:34, Luke 18:19), Just (Deut. 32:4, 2 Chr. 12:6, Job 9:19, Ps. 11:7, Is. 30:18), Merciful (Eph. 2:4, Rom. 9:15-16, Neh. 9:31, Is. 63:9, Micah 7:18, Lk. 1:50,78), Gracious (Ps. 145:8, Eph. 2:8, Ex. 33:19), Loving (Ps. 36:7, 86:15, 136:26, John 3:16, 15:9-17, Rom. 5:8, 8:37-39, Gal. 2:20, Eph. 2:4-5, 1 John 4), Holy (Is. 6:3, 1 Peter 1:15-16, Rev. 4:8, 15:4), Glorious (Ex. 24:17, 1 Chr. 16:29, P s. 72:19, Hab. 3:4).
207 1 Kings 8:46, Eccl. 7:20, Rom. 3:10, 23, Ps. 14:1-3, Lev. 5:5, Ps. 32:5, Prov. 28:13, Rom. 10:9-10, 1 John 1:9.
208 Eph. 3:14-21, Ps. 95:6
209 Mt. 10:32-33, Lk. 9:26, 12:8
210 Rom. 12:1, Ex. 20:8-10, Lev. 19:30, Ps. 92:1, Heb. 10:25, Col. 3:16, Eph. 5:19, 2 Tim. 2:21.
211 The natural religion Newcome is referring to here is actually natural theology, or the argument for God’s existence from an observation of natural facts, it does not refer to the Pantheistic doctrine that adheres to the idea that nature itself is divine. At this time, Deism had not become popular yet, and therefore, Newcome used the former term before it became associated with Pantheism or Deism. Chignell and Pereboom write, “In contemporary philosophy, however, both natural religion and natural theology typically refer to the project of using the cognitive faculties that are ‘natural’ to human beings— reason, sense-perception, introspection—to investigate religious or theological matters. Natural religion or theology, on the present understanding, is not limited to empirical inquiry into nature, and it is not wedded to a pantheistic result…In general, natural religion or theology (hereafter natural theology) aims to adhere to the same standards of rational investigation as other philosophical and scientific enterprises, and is subject to the same methods of evaluation and critique,” (emphasis mine.) Chignell, Andrew and Pereboom, Derk, “Natural Theology and Natural Religion”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/natural-theology/>.
212 Virtue: behavior exemplifying high moral standards, or goodness.
213 Vice: Evil, wicked, immoral or bad behavior.
214 Responsibility
215 A system that discerns between right/good and wrong/bad behavior, or more specifically, a preference for good behavior over bad behavior.
216 Devout, reverent, faithful – specifically to God.
217 When we mistreat others, or lack in our morality, we are sinning against God as well, because man is made in His image. It is His will that we treat others well, so to not do so is to directly disobey Him.
218 Humans naturally esteem or praise goodness. Rarely does mankind dislike virtue or good behavior, however, evil is almost always sure to be met with contempt or dislike.
219 A guilty conscience always follows an evil action once the pleasure of the instant gratification fades away.
220 Expectation of future consequences, i.e. rewards and punishments for past actions.
221 If doing good leads to future rewards, it is a contributing factor to our potential happiness.
222 Even though doing good naturally leads to happiness, and evil to misery, there is also an argument to be made for the fact that people who do good or are virtuous are not always happy, and those who do evil are not always miserable. Newcome then goes on to answer this particular challenge.
223 Many have questioned why bad things happen to good people and vice versa. Psalm 73 answers this: I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked…Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches. It seems that I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence in vain…When I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I realized their end, (ESV, Paraphrase mine).
224 This is essentially the argument from desire: If, for man, goodness ultimately leads to happiness, yet that is not the case in this world at all times, then this world must not be all there is. If being good does not lead to happiness in this life, according to God’s attributes of benevolence, love, and justice, there must be an afterlife in which a virtuous man can obtain bliss. Otherwise, the natural law would not be fair, and God would be unjust. This idea of an afterlife proves that man’s soul is immortal. This would make sense given the fact that humans pursue immortality and fear death and suffering. If we were originally created to live forever with God, then we would naturally desire it. C.S. Lewis wrote, “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water… If I find in myself a desire, which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my early pleasures satisfy it that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly desires were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.” (Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York, NY: Macmillan, 1960; p. 120). If man desires happiness, it must exist and come from somewhere, or from Someone. Therefore, a Being capable of fulfilling man’s desire for ultimate happiness must exist.
225 Intense happiness
226 Consequences of actions perpetrated in their past lives, i.e. the result of heaven or hell.
227 If God exists, and is just and good, then there must be some happiness waiting for the virtuous at the end of this life, since the good are rarely rewarded in this fallen, temporal state.
228 Here Newcome discusses the idea of substance dualism: that the mind (including its faculties of thinking and reasoning) and body are of two separate substances: physical and metaphysical, or material and immaterial. As J.P. Moreland points out, there are things that are true of the mind that are not true of the brain. In his paper on Substance Dualism, he writes, “For example, thoughts cannot be a physical state of the brain. Why? Because there are things true of my thoughts that are not true of a physical state of my brain. It does not make any sense to ask how many inches long is my thought that lunch is in an hour and a half. How much does it weigh? Is that thought closer to my left ear or closer to my right ear? What geometrical shape does that thought have? Is it sort of weird shaped or is it a square or a rectangle? That is all nonsense. However, while I am thinking, the state that is going on in my brain at that time does have a shape. It is located in, say, my left or my right hemisphere, so it will be closer to my left or right ear. It will have a certain mass and chemical composition. And there is something true of a thought that cannot be true of a brain state. Thoughts can be true or false. Brain states are neither true nor false, they just exist. So there are things true of my thoughts that cannot be true of my brain state, so thoughts cannot be the same thing as my brain state,” (http://www.sebts.edu/faithandculture/pdf_docs/naturalism_and_the_crisis_of_the_soul.pdf). If the mind and the brain are not the same thing, then it follows that the mind is of another substance, that of the immaterial. Therefore, man is not just a physical being, he is spirit as well.
229 Because man is also immaterial, or spirit/soul, then it follows that just because his physical part (body) dies, it does not automatically mean that his immaterial part will as well. Especially if, as Newcome asserts, it is a superior substance.
230 If Substance Monism is true, then the body and mind/spirit are the same substance, and both will perish at the same time and an individual’s complete existence will simply decompose and fade with time. If Substance Dualism is true, and the fact that the mind (thoughts) and brain (physical body) are of different properties, then the immaterial part of man will exist far longer than the material part, therefore there is an afterlife of some sort.
231 To give everyone the amount of happiness they deserve in relation to their virtue.
232 In Newcome’s first edition of Enquiry, this section was only one page. However, after Tindal’s book came out, she expanded it in her second edition to more thoroughly answer his arguments that God would not supernaturally reveal Himself to man (Deism).
233 If God did not give Adam explicit rules for how humans were to act, he would not have known what was good or bad for him (physically or morally) except through trial and error, and could have destroyed himself in the process. However, this is not the case. God did spend time with Adam, teaching him how to live. Many people will say that there is no evidence for this, but in Genesis 3:8 it says that Adam and Eve heard the Lord God walking in the garden, and hid from him. It does not say they saw Him and hid, it says they heard Him. They recognized the sound of the Lord’s steps because it was familiar to them. They knew the sound of His steps from experience. He also gave Adam explicit rules for what was allowed and what was not (i.e. everything except eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was okay), in order to show him there was such a thing as right (God’s way requiring humility) and wrong (man’s way involving pride), see Genesis 2:15-17.
234 This is referring to the saints of the Old Testament who, even though they knew right and wrong from their forefathers, were not able to discern God’s preference until He gave them the Law.
235 After man has existed around other humans a while, his natural responsibility in society would become clear to even those of the most inferior mental understanding. How he “ought” to act would become obvious eventually due to the reactions of his peers.
236 While man would have eventually figured out how to act appropriately in society, he would not, on his own, ever naturally figure out how he ought to act in relation to God. He would need some help so as to not mistake the Creator of the world for a different deity and worship a false god.
237 Many people want to learn what’s right and wrong, and spend time researching religions and to learn their obligations to the Creator, but simply do not have the time given their station in life.
238 There are many charismatic false prophets out there that have led people astray from the truth, and have deceived them into thinking they do not need to reason through their own personal belief, but to simply trust that what they have been told by the prophet is the truth.
239 If God had not instructed Adam and Eve at the beginning, they would have eventually figured out some morality through trial and error, but would still be missing other important knowledge/instruction that they could not discover on their own. For example, if Jesus is the only way to obtain eternal life, how would one know that if God did not reveal Himself through His Son or His Word? Humans may have figured out there was a Creator God, but which one He was would have been obscured.
240 We trust that God, knowing that He is the path to ultimate, eternal happiness, and knowing the fallen nature of man, the lack of time humans have, and abundance of deceivers present on earth, He will intervene supernaturally to guide us to the truth.
241 Christianity as Old as Creation, Ch. I, page 3, 4, 5.
242 “This first conclusion, that God will not reveal to mankind any natural duties which all men by their reason cannot discover to be such, is not this gentleman’s: he supposes God may reveal to mankind all natural duties; but such a supposal is inconsistent with the perfection of the law, rule, or religion, given to all mankind; and if the law (etc.) given to all mankind is perfect, and can have nothing added to it, then God cannot reveal to mankind any natural duties not discoverable by the reason of all men.” – Newcome’s note
243 To Tindal, there is no need for special divine action, or God interceding to give a supernatural revelation to man. He asserts that the ‘natural religion’ (the ability to discover everything we need to know due to the faculties God created us with naturally, and without God’s interceding later on in time) is all humans need to be right with God.
244 Consequences of actions perpetrated in their past lives, i.e. the result of heaven or hell.
245 Some people are not born with the same mental faculties as others, and cannot reason to the same extent as others. Therefore, it is inconsistent with God’s attributes to let those wander in ignorance their whole lives and suffer the eternal consequences of actions they did not know to be wrong.
246 Christianity as Old as Creation, Ch. I, p. 5.
247 Because he is fallen, every man is not physically perfect. Due to sin, by which death came into the world, there is the Law of Entropy. Man’s DNA is not perfect, and can occasionally break down, and be mutated or deformed. If every person is not born with the same abilities but is held to the same standard of righteousness, it would make God unjust. However, because we know He is just, otherwise He would not be God, we know this is not the case.
248 Here Newcome gives the case for special divine action and asserts that Deism is inconsistent with the attributes of God. If He is just and loving, He would not leave His created beings wandering around imperfect in the dark, but would reveal and illuminate that which will lead to their perfection, specifically, salvation through Jesus Christ.
249 Human reason is not enough because not everyone has the same mental faculties or ability to reason.
250 Newcome here is appealing to the Scientific Method – that we derive our knowledge from an observation of the facts, instead of asserting a view and declaring it perfect without evidence.
251 God’s ways are not our ways. We cannot discern why He does certain things or allows certain things to happen in our lives. We could be delayed on the way to work by a malfunctioning traffic light and think, “Why me?” but it was really God’s providence preventing us from being struck by a drunk driver in the next intersection. Isaiah 55:8-9 (ESV) states, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Romans 11:33-34 (ESV) says, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’”
252 Our senses are not to be trusted in their observations of things since we are finite and temporary, and only see the truth partially. Observations can be trusted when they line up with God’s character, but when they contradict His character we must re-assess them. The fact that we can observe in the first place is evidence of God’s goodness in that He allows us to exist by taking the time to create us so well in the first place. Our existence is evidence of His goodness.
253 Many people wonder why God gave man free will if He knew there was a possibility of sin. C.S. Lewis writes that, “God created things which had free will. That means creatures that can go wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature that was free but had no possibility of going wrong, but I can’t. If a thing is free to be good it’s also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why then did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automatons – of creatures that worked like machines – would hardly be worth creating…Of course, God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently, He thought that it was worth the risk… If God thinks this state of war in the universe is a price worth paying for free will – that is, for making a real world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings – then we also may take it as being worth paying,” (The Case for Christianity).
254 These are all evidences of God revealing Himself to man beyond “natural theology”, or what is known as “special divine action.”
255 No research indicated whether Newcome leaned one way or another on Calvinism or Arminianism. This “duty” she speaks of is listed out in Section VII, Enquiry 2, under 1. What are Man’s responsibilities? Given the emphasis she later places on Christ and His work alone, it seems as though she saw these duties as simply an indication that a person’s heart was truly repentant and in a place of submission to God – and that included both inward and outward expressions of faith.
256 To ask for forgiveness for our sins.
258 2 Timothy 2:22, 1 Peter 2:11
259 Romans 12:17
260 Matthew 7:12
262 Matthew 25:34-46
263 Matthew 5:45
264 1 Corinthians 13
266 Malachi 3:6, James 1:17
267 Genesis 17:1, 28:3, 35:11, etc.
268 Psalm 139, Prov. 5:21, 15:3, Hebrews 4:13, etc.
270 Ps. 147:5, Rom. 11:33
271 Is. 57:15, Ps. 99:3, 103:1, 111:9, 145:21, Rev. 4:8, etc.
272 Is. 45:21, Zeph. 3:5, Deut. 16:18, Prov. 16:11, Ps. 89:14
273 1 Chronicles 16:34, Ezra 3:11, Ps. 105, 106:1, 107:1
274 Sin
275 Holiness
277 Matthew 25:46
278 See footnotes on Substance Dualism.
279 See Section IV on rationally expected evidence (Proposition 2)
280 Psalm 19:1-6, Romans 1:18-20, also known as general revelation.
281 See Section VI footnotes on the unmoved Mover and the Law of Inertia
282 The laws of nature (thermodynamics, physics, etc.) give evidence of the existence of a God, while a change in those laws give evidence of His will.
283 Newcome is one of the earliest writers to have discussed the definition of a miracle as a change in the laws of nature, considering that those laws were discovered only a few decades before she wrote her book.
284 If Christianity is from God, it will have the evidence of miracles. If miracles are a change in the laws of nature, and God is the only one who has the power to do so, then evidence in the form of a miracle is God’s stamp of approval on Christianity.
285 Does the supposed event fit the criteria of a miracle, or was it simply an amazing human feat?
286 Is there evidence that the supposed event actually happened in history?
287 See Enquiry 1
288 Effected: brought about.
289 We are not omniscient nor omnipresent. We did not create the laws, we only discovered them. Therefore, to us, the laws of nature are descriptive, not prescriptive. They describe what we see usually happens, but they do not prescribe what has to happen.
290 Before modern technological advances, there were a lot of natural phenomena that we could not explain, simply because we are finite in our experience. Again, we are not omnipresent (everywhere all at once) or omniscient (knowing all) so we have had to guess about things we could not explain. Before the invention of the telescope, we had no idea why phenomena like eclipses happened, so we assumed them to be “miraculous”.
291 When a known cause produces a new effect in a special circumstance, or when there is no connection between a known cause and effect, we can identify it as the laws of nature being changed (i.e. a miracle).
292 John 9:6
293 Matthew 14:25-31
294 John 11:40-44
295 Acts 1:3
296 Acts 2:1-12
297 If the events mentioned in the Bible did actually happen in history, they would be considered miracles because those events have no natural cause and effect connection and would require the assistance of a supernatural Being.
298 Did the miracles recorded in the Bible actually happen? What do the facts say?
299 If we did not know how the laws of nature worked, we could not say they had been changed. However, we do know how they work; therefore, we can determine when a change has taken place.
300 The characteristics of a true miracle include purpose (there had to be a reason for the miracle – to give evidence or a sign, or to confirm that something did indeed come from God) and it has to be special (they cannot be happening all the time, otherwise, they are not a change in the laws of nature, they would be part of the normal workings of the laws.
301 If the disciples were not deceived themselves, and if they were men of character, then we can trust their testimony because they would not be the kind of men who would purposefully deceive others. See Section I footnote on Moral Testimony (Truth, Evidence, and Belief).
302 The gospel accounts were published while people who were eyewitnesses were still alive. Therefore, if the accounts were not true, they would have said something. William Lane Craig writes that, “The writings of the Greek historian Herodotus enable us to test the rate at which a legend accumulates; the tests show that even the span of two generations is too short to allow legendary tendencies to wipe out the hard core of historical fact,” (W. Craig, The Son Rises, Wipf & Stock Pub: 2001, p.101).
303 The sound, consistent reputations of the individual disciples/eyewitnesses do not lend themselves to the theory that the disciples would have been so passionate or enthused that they would have imagined the acts they perpetrated (ex. making the blind see, the lame walk, the dead come to life, or that they speak in languages which they never learned).
304 If they did not imagine the events, the second question to answer is whether or not the authors of the Gospel accounts were ever known to purposefully deceive someone, or if lying about the accounts would actually benefit them or not (i.e. did they have a reason to lie?)
305 There was no reason for the authors/disciples/eyewitnesses to lie. The consequence for preaching that Jesus was God, and that He and His followers performed miracles, was torture and death! Their lives would have been much easier if it had all been made up and they confirmed it to be so. They instead preached over and over that everything that was recorded was in fact true, and they paid the price for it.
306 It would be detrimental to their cause of spreading Christianity to lie about its origins. Who wants to follow a God that favors those who lie? No one would have trusted them and the church would never have grown. It was because of who the disciples/ authors/eyewitnesses were that people trusted Jesus and caused the new religion of Christianity spread like wildfire.
307 Mark 8:31-38, 10:45, Philippians 2:5-8, Luke 22:24-30, Matthew 17:22-23, John 15:18, 1 John 3:13.
308 One of the main problems with the argument that the disciples followed Jesus out of some idea of worldly gain is the issue of Paul the apostle. Paul had persecuted the Christians and was well-respected in his community. Converting to Christianity would be the opposite of worldly gain for him and he knew it. (See Philippians 1:21 and Galatians 2:20)
309 If they die because they stick to the falsehood (if it is one) then they not only give up Earth, but Heaven too, because they are grand deceivers and God would not abide lying in His name.
310 No person of sound mind would lie, knowing pain would come, if they knew it was in fact a lie.
311 People have died for false causes before, but they sincerely thought that it was the truth. They were sincerely wrong and died because of it. However, no one dies for something they know to be false.
312 In the end, self-preservation would have won out and the deceivers would have recanted if it were all a great lie.
313 We cannot expect higher evidence than other written historical accounts to determine the truthfulness of the Gospels. If we reject the historicity of the Gospel accounts, and their evidence, we must reject everything else as well, because the evidence we have for them is the highest that can be expected.
314 Matthew 16:24
315 Many, many people have not wanted Christianity to be true, and have tried to prove the authors of the Gospels were lying, yet none have succeeded. 2000 years later, there are over two billion people in the world that consider themselves Christian, which would not be the case if someone had definitively proved the NT Gospels false.
316 The teachings of Jesus in the Gospels are the opposite of self-seeking. Jesus talked about denying oneself, and sacrifice. Men who had worldly ambition and were the self-seeking sort that tended to lie would not have produced such a doctrine.
317 We can figure out the motives a religion’s founder has once it has been established. Their doctrines and teachings are usually a window into the thoughts and intents of their heart. Christianity’s motives are the opposite of worldly and selfish.
318 At the time Christianity started, there was nothing like it. Judaism had imposed many rules and traditions on its adherents, proclaiming a religion of works-based faith, and the Pagan Roman gods were the opposite of the moral standard Jesus set for His followers. Christianity would not have naturally come out of that culture, therefore it had to come from somewhere outside of this environment.
319 With the state of the Jewish religion at the time, there is no way Jesus could have come up with the doctrine laid out in the Sermon on the Mount if all he knew was the influence and teaching of the local Scribes and Pharisees. They hated Him because what He taught was the opposite of what they taught in their synagogues.
320 Christianity has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to historical evidence. There is earlier, and better quality and quantity manuscript evidence than any other religion in the world – almost 25,000 manuscripts catalogued at this point. Specifically, there are 5700+ Greek NT manuscripts, with only a gap of 30-300 years from the original events to the time they were recorded. The only one that comes close is Homer’s Iliad with 643 manuscripts with a 500-year gap, yet no one even questions that Homer wrote it when he is recorded to have.
321 John 5:39
322 John 5:46
323 There are instances where something foretold will come to pass, and it is not always evidence that a message has come from God. Sometimes, events will come to pass due to coincidence, people force it to come to pass because they believe it to be from God, or will cause it to come to pass simply due to self-fulfilling prophecy. The point is that the prophecies that are in the Scriptures, for the most part, required supernatural assistance.
324 The first criteria of a true prophecy is if it was fulfilled through a miracle (i.e. a change in the laws of nature), because then we know it came from God, since He is the only one who can perform miracles.
325 The second criteria of true prophecy is (if it can come to pass without a miracle) whether or not it was predicted long enough before the passing of the event that it was not humanly possible to predict apart from supernatural knowledge.
326 The third criteria of a miracle is if it could happen without a miracle, and it is possible for a human to predict it, but has to happen within a specific time period that is humanly impossible to control, or if the person fulfilling them does not know about it ahead of time (ex. Isaiah prophesying that King Cyrus would let the Jews go back to Israel).
327 The last criteria of a true prophecy that Newcome discusses is if the prophetic event must occur in a specific succession or chain of events, in order for it to come to pass, it must be the work of a Being who can order events in such a way as to guarantee their occurrence in that specific manner.
328 If Jesus did indeed perform miracles (as only the Creator can do), if He fulfilled the prophecies that the Jews considered divine (meaning the fulfillment must come from God), and He fulfilled the prophecies in a supernatural way, then He has the highest evidence of prophecy to support His claim that He is the Messiah.
329 Deut. 18:21
330 Deut. 18:16, Exodus 20:19
331 Deut. 18:17, etc.
332 There had to be something that proved the Prophet was who He says He was (miracles), otherwise the people would not know whether He was from God or an imposter. As mentioned before, miracles have purpose and in Jesus’ case it was to show that He was indeed the Son of God.
333 Why do people not believe that Jesus is the Prophet spoken of by Moses?
334 John 5:36
335 John 8:18
336 John 10:25
337 John 10:37-38
338 John 14:11
339 John 15:22-24; If Jesus had never revealed Himself to them, they would not be held accountable for not listening to him, but as verse 22 says, they now have no excuse.
340 John 5:45-46
341 Acts 3:22
342 Acts 7:37
343 God could not contradict His character of truth and utilize a miracle to give evidence of a lie.
344 This knowledge that the common masses are ignorant of may be a scientific or pseudo-scientific knowledge. It could even be some sort of magic trick or sleight of hand that makes what the imposter is doing appear supernatural. Newcome’s original footnote referred to Traité sur les Miracles by Mr. Jacques Serces, 1729. This French book’s full title in English is A Treaty on Miracles in which we prove that the Devil can not do it to confirm Error, which is self-explanatory.
345 Deut. 34:10
346 Deut. 18:17-18
347 John 4:26. If Jesus is accepted as a true prophet by the Jews, and His message is that He is the Messiah, then it should be automatically accepted as being from God.
348 If someone can show what the written accounts say about the Messiah from the Jewish Scriptures and then show that Jesus did not fulfill them, then yes, it would be conceded that Jesus is not the Messiah. Otherwise, we should trust the evidence of miracles (a sign of God’s approval) and fulfilled prophecy (a sign that His words are God’s).
349 Isaiah 4:2
350 Is. 9:6-7
351 Micah 5:2
352 Isaiah 11:1-5
353 Is. 16:5
354 Is. 32:1
355 Jeremiah 23:5-6
356 Isaiah 42:1-8
357 Is. 52:13-15
358 Daniel 7:13-14
359 Zechariah 9:9
360 Zech. 2:10-12
361 Zech. 14:9
362 Isaiah 11:10
363 Is. 25:7-8
364 Isaiah 35:4-6
365 Is. 40:5
366 Is. 60:3
367 Is. 49:6
368 Is. 61:1-2
369 Daniel 9:24
370 Dan. 2:44
371 Micah 4:7b
372 Isaiah 54:13
373 The only part of the Law that was intended to be perpetual (eternal) was the moral statutes, not the ceremonial or civil ones. Dr. R.C. Sproul writes, “We make a distinction between moral laws, civil laws, and ceremonial laws such as the dietary laws and physical circumcision. That’s helpful because there’s a certain sense in which practicing some of the laws from the Old Testament as Christians would actually be blasphemy. Paul stresses in Galatians, for example, that if we were to require circumcision, we would be sinning. Now, the distinction between moral, civil, and ceremonial laws is helpful, but for the old covenant Jew, it was somewhat artificial. That’s because it was a matter of the utmost moral consequences whether they kept the ceremonial laws. It was a moral issue for Daniel and his friends not to eat as the Babylonians did (Dan. 1). But the distinction between the moral, civil, and ceremonial laws means that there’s a bedrock body of righteous laws that God gives to His covenant people that have abiding significance and relevance before and after the coming of Christ. During the period of Reformed scholasticism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Reformed theologians said that God legislates to Israel and to the new covenant church on two distinct bases: on the basis of divine natural law and on the basis of divine purpose. In this case, the theologians did not mean the lex naturalis, the law that is revealed in nature and in the conscience. By ‘natural law,’ they meant those laws that are rooted and grounded in God’s own character. For God to abrogate these laws would be to do violence to His own person. For example, if God in the old covenant said, ‘You shall have no other gods before Me,’ but now He says, ‘It is okay for you to have other gods and to be involved in idolatry,’ God would be doing violence to His own holy character. Statutes legislated on the basis of this natural law will be enforced at all times. On the other hand, there is legislation made on the basis of the divine purpose in redemption, such as the dietary laws, that when their purpose is fulfilled, God can abrogate without doing violence to His own character. I think that’s a helpful distinction,” (https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/which-laws-apply/).
374 Matthew 5:17
375 Exodus 40:15, Numbers 25:13
376 Ezekiel 20:25
377 The Old Covenant, or those laws that applied to the Jews in the Old Testament.
378 Ezekiel 20:25
379 Galatians 3:8,17
380 Acts 3:26
381 Hebrews 5:9
382 Heb. 9:12b
383 Heb. 9:26b
385 Heb. 9:7-8
386 Heb. 9:23-24
387 Matthew 11:13
388 Matthew 5:17-18
389 Luke 22:16
390 Exodus 7-8, Leviticus 23:34
391 If the first covenant was given to introduce (or prepare the people for) the second, it makes sense that the prophecies given by the prophets in the Old Testament would be shadows or symbols of things to come, to get the people to focus on the future, to give the people hope that something or Someone better was coming to deliver them from their transgressions.
392 Prophecies that don’t apply to the time in which they are first given because they are intended to be fulfilled at a later time.
393 Matthew 26:31, Zech. 13:7
394 Mark 15:28, Is 53:12
395 Matt. 1:23, Is. 7:14
396 Matt. 2:15, Hosea 11:1
397 Ps. 69:21, Matt. 27:34
398 Matt. 27:35, Ps. 22:18
399 Matt. 27:9, Zech. 11:12
400 Psalm 2:7-8
401 Ps. 16:8-11
402 Ps. 69:21, Matt. 27:34
403 Matt. 27:35, Ps. 22:18
404 Is. 7:14
405 Matthew 2:23; The reason this verse in Matthew is a point of contention is due to the fact that nowhere in the Old Testament or written records of the prophets does a prophecy exist that the Messiah would come from Nazareth.
406 Newcome answers that it’s possible the Jews had an oral tradition that was not written down that the Messiah would be a Nazarene. The Jewish traditions were often passed down orally, and not all were written down. It is much more likely that Matthew made a supposition based on an old oral tradition, rather than he falsely quoted a prophecy to make it fit Jesus of Nazareth. Matthew lying about prophecies would have done more harm to his cause of proving Jesus as the true Messiah than helping it. It simply does not fit with the integrity of Matthew’s character or help in the accomplishment of that task he had set out to do. There are many possible answers to this challenge, and many can be found in Wayne Jackson’s helpful article here: “Was Matthew Mistaken in the “Nazarene” Prophecy?” ChristianCourier.com. (https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/573-was-matthew-mistaken-in-the-nazarene-prophecy)
407 John 1:21
408 Matthew 11:14
409 Luke 1:17
410 Ezekiel 37:25; Jer. 33:17-21; Micah 4:7
411 Genesis 12:3, 18:18, 22:18
412 If the Jews hold to the belief that the promise God made to Abraham (that through him and his descendants all the earth will be blessed) was not fulfilled spiritually in Jesus, it is still unfulfilled and that means that God did not fulfill His promise to them, since they are still in earthly distress. This would not correctly reflect God’s character of goodness and love, and would be a contradiction in His nature, which is impossible. God cannot be good and not good, loving and not loving, at the same time.
413 2 Peter 3:8
414 God would not wait so long that His people would completely and thoroughly lose all hope.
415 Genesis 49:10
416 Deut. 34:10-11
417 Psalm 89
418 2 Samuel 23: 2-5
419 Daniel 9:24, 26
420 Remember that Susanna is writing this in the early 1700’s.
421 To confirm the gospel and give hope to the hopeless.
422 Malachi 3:1
423 Haggai 2:7,9
424 John 12:49
425 Hebrews 6:1
426 Heb. 6:4-6
427 Heb. 10:4
428 Heb. 10:12,17; 7:19, 27, 26.
429 Heb. 8:6-13; 7:12, 18
430 See Dr. Cheyne’s Philosophical Principles of Religion
431 Christianity as Old as the Creation, Ch. I, page 3, 4, 5.
432 This first conclusion, that God will not reveal to mankind any natural duties which all men by their reason cannot discover to be such, is not this gentleman’s: he supposes God may reveal to mankind all natural duties; but such a supposal is inconsistent with the perfection of the law, rule, or religion, given to all mankind; and if the law, etc. given to all mankind is perfect, and can have nothing added to it, then God cannot reveal to mankind any natural duties not discoverable by the reason of all men.
433 Christianity as Old as Creation, Ch. I, p. 5.
435 Romans 13:17
436 Matthew 7:12
438 Matthew 25:34-46
439 Matthew 5:45
440 1 Corinthians 13
442 Malachi 3:6, James 1:17
443 Genesis 17:1, 28:3, 35:11, etc.
444 Psalm 139, Prov. 5:21, 15:3, Hebrews 4:13, etc.
446 Ps. 147:5, Rom. 11:33
447 Is. 57:15, Ps. 99:3, 103:1, 111:9, 145:21, Rev. 4:8, etc.
448 Is. 45:21, Zeph. 3:5, Deut. 16:18, Prov. 16:11, Ps. 89:14
449 1 Chronicles 16:34, Ezra 3:11, Ps. 100:5, 106:1, 107:1
451 Matthew 25:46
452 John 5:39
453 John 5:46
454 Deut. 18:15
455 Ibid.
456 Deut. 18:18
457 Deut. 18:19
458 Deut. 18:22
459 Deut. 18:21
460 Deut. 18:16, Exodus 20:19
461 Deut. 18:17, etc.
462 John 5:36
463 John 8:18
464 John 10:25
465 John 10:37-38
466 John 14:11
467 John 15:22-24
468 John 5:45-46
469 Acts 3:22
470 Acts 7:37
471 See Traité sur les Miracles by Mr. Jacques Serces, 1729
472 Deut. 34:10
473 Deut. 18:17-18
474 John 4:26
475 Isaiah 4:2
476 Is. 9:6-7
477 Micah 5:2
478 Isaiah 11:1-5
479 Is. 16:5
480 Is. 32:1
481 Jeremiah 23:5-6
482 Isaiah 42:1-8
483 Is. 52:13-15
484 Daniel 7:13-14
485 Zechariah 9:9
486 Zech. 2:10-12
487 Zech. 14:9
488 Isaiah 11:10
489 Is. 25:7-8
490 Isaiah 35:4-6
491 Is. 40:5
492 Is. 60:3
493 Is. 49:6
494 Daniel 9:24
495 Dan. 2:44
496 Micah 4:7b
497 Isaiah 54:13
498 Exodus 40:15, Numbers 25:13
499 Ezekiel 20:25
500 Ezekiel 20:25
501 Galatians 3:8,17
502 Acts 3:26
503 Hebrews 5:9
504 Heb. 9:12b
505 Heb. 9:26b
507 Heb. 9:7-8
508 Heb. 9:23-24
509 Matthew 11:13
510 Matthew 5:17-18
511 Luke 22:16
512 Exodus 7-8
513 Leviticus 23:34
514 Matthew 26:31, Zech. 13:7
515 Mark 15:28, Is 53:12
516 Matt. 1:23, Is. 7:14
517 Matt. 2:15, Hosea 11:1
518 Ps. 69:21, Matt. 27:34
519 Matt. 27:35, Ps. 22:18
520 Matt. 27:9, Zech. 11:12
521 Psalm 2:7-8
522 Ps. 16:8-11
523 Ps. 69:21, Matt. 27:34
524 Matt. 27:35, Ps. 22:18
525 Matthew 2:23
526 John 1:21
527 Matthew 11:14
528 Luke 1:17
529 Ezekiel 37:25; Jer. 33:17-21; Micah 4:7
530 Genesis 12:3, 18:18, 22:18
531 Genesis 49:10
532 Deut. 34:10-11
533 Psalm 89
534 2 Samuel 23:2-5
535 Daniel 9:24, 26
536 Malachi 3:1
537 Haggai 2:7,9
538 Matthew 11:3-4
539 John 12:49
540 Hebrews 6:1
541 Heb. 6:4-6
542 Heb. 10:4
543 Heb. 10:17
544 Heb. 7:19
545 Heb. 7:27
547 Heb. 8:6-13
548 Heb. 7:18
549 Heb. 7:12