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

"To close this letter, which perhaps is already too long, I would here acknowledge that as I have expressed doubts in the subject of divine revelation, you have a right to hear my reasons for doubting. These I promised to give you (as I thought) at the close of my fourth number. You have informed me, verbally, that I promised to give you my doubts only. If I did so, it was only a slip of the pen, to which I am too prone; it was my reasons for doubting, which I meant to have promised you; and in my next I shall endeavor to fulfil that promise.

"Yours, &c.

A. KNEELAND."

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LETTER V.

Dear sir, and brother,—Your fifth and sixth numbers were received together, and will be noticed in the order in which they came to hand.

You observe that you know of no better evidence that "there ever was such a story reported among the Jews, in the days of the apostles, than there is to prove the actual resurrection of Jesus," &c. This suggestion leads to the following queries.

1st. Was there in the days of the apostles, such a man known in the country of the Jews, as Jesus Christ?

2d. Was this man put to death, as the four evangelists and others testify?

3d. Did the apostles declare to the people who put him to death, that they knew that he had arisen from the dead?