A Series of Letters, in Defence of Divine Revelation / In Reply to Rev. Abner Kneeland's Serious Inquiry into the Authenticity of the Same. To Which is Added, a Religious Correspondence, Between the Rev. Hosea Ballou, and the Rev. Dr. Joseph Buckminster and Rev. Joseph Walton, Pastors of Congregational Churches in Portsmouth, N. H.

by Hosea Ballou

LETTER IV.

Much esteemed friend,—Your fourth number is hereby acknowledged; and though occasions for finding fault are in some measure extenuated, it still appears that you have lost the real connexion of your arguments, and have made the subject of the languages one of your main subjects, when judging from your first number, it was no more than a vestibule to the grand edifice which it was in your mind to examine.

However, you having paid more than half, we will not stand about the fraction, as long as we have a profitable object in view. You call up what you call the subject. I suppose the main subject. This you state as follows: "In regard to a revelation from God, the three propositions which you have stated answer my mind well enough, as far as they go; to which however, I would wish to add a fourth, and ask; admitting the three first particulars true.—4th. Is it reasonable to suppose, that the apostles had any other means of forming their opinions, relative to a future state, than what passed before their eyes? viz. the miracles of Christ, the circumstance attending his death, his resurrection, and the miracles wrought by themselves in his name?" I wish, in this place, to show you that your added proposition possesses no power relative to our argument which is not comprehended in the last of the three which I stated. For if it be allowed, as you propose, that my propositions are true, then you consent to the validity of the apostles' testimony respecting a future state, which granted, it makes no difference in what way the apostles come to the knowledge of futurity. When a thing is known, it is known. The means by which it is known add nothing to either side of the argument. If you allow that my argument on this subject is correct, as it seems you do, then you acknowledge that God would not endow men with the power to heal the sick and raise the dead, whose testimony concerning a future state could be justly doubted. I will not be too positive that I rightly apprehend your meaning on this subject, but as you propose to allow my three propositions, and as you make no attempt to do away my reasoning, especially on my last, I think I should not understand you according to your own proposal in any other way.

The methaphor which you use to help you away from my argument respecting the importance of a revelation from God, does not appear fully adequate to the purpose for which you use it. It might not be a reasonable, a necessary disposition of property for the proposed benefactor, to give you a large estate; it might be, in the eye of reason a very improper donation, and one which would deprive legitimate heirs of what they had a right to expect from a father towards whom they had always acted with filial obedience.—But if you will make the case a parallel, and suppose you are an heir, a lawful child, and your father has a large estate to dispose of, then you will see that it is right and just, and no more than what you have reason to expect; that it is necessary, and that this necessity is the importance of the subject, you will at once see that this importance is a reason, yea an evidence that you have a right to expect it. I called on you to prove that no revelation was needed; I acknowledged that if none was necessary, a being of infinite wisdom would make none. You venture to say, that the "only evidence that reason can have of the necessity of divine revelation is its truth." It is believed, sir, that this hypothesis involves too much. It is saying that reason can discern the necessity of nothing until it obtains it, whereas the truth is evidently the other side of the assertion. We are frequently experiencing the necessity of things which we have not already attained, and by this want we are incited to use the means by which we finally obtain them.—"Ask, and ye shall receive, seek, and ye shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you," &c. It is believed, and no doubt it may be argued with success, that the moral and religious state of man really required a divine revelation. Never did the parched ground, the withering plant, the thirsty herds need the showers from heaven, more than man, that WORD of life which descended as the rain and distilled as the dew, when the gospel was published by a cloud of faithful witnesses, called of God for that purpose.

After acknowledging that your words admit of the construction which I gave them respecting the apostles stating no more than what was substantially true, you inform me that you meant something very different; then, sir, it seems you must mean that they stated that which is not true. And if so, why do you not prove wherein they testified falsely, which would at once cast their bands from us? By this mean you would show that their testimony is deserving of no credit.

On the subjects of your doubts, you recollected my request, that you bring forward your reasons, &c. But in room of doing this you inform me that your doubts are involuntary. But I wish to know if this renders it improper for you to state your reasons for doubting? You further inform me that your doubts do not amount to a confirmed unbelief. Again, I would ask if it be necessary for you to wait until you are a confirmed unbeliever before you state your reasons for doubting the truth of the testimony which Christians call divine?

By these questions you will perceive that I am waiting for you, and if I am not able to meet your arguments, I am ready on making the discovery, to acknowledge your reasoning too strong for my weak powers to manage.

Yours, &c.

H. BALLOU.

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