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LETTER VII.
Dear sir, and brother—Desiring to bring our present correspondence to a close as soon as the merits of its subject will admit, I propose in replying to your 8th number, to remark only on the most essential particulars, taking no particular notice of two classes contained in your communication, viz. that which seems to grow out of a misconstruction of my arguments and that in which you appear to agree with them. Indulging in this liberty, the subjects to which I will endeavour to confirm myself are the following.
1st. Your method of accounting for the absence of the crucified Jesus, from the sepulchre where it was laid and guarded by the Roman soldiers.
2d. What you suggest respecting the divine mission of Christ and his apostles, the miracles which were wrought by them in attestation of the Messiah, and the credibility of their testimony regarding a future state.
3d. What you contend for respecting the utility, or inutility of the christian hope of future felicity.
4th. Something on the instructions of Jesus to his disciples respecting their conduct toward their enemies.
5th. What you suggest respecting Jesus' not being known to the two disciples, &c.
6th. Your criticism on my argument respecting the evidences of the resurrection, &c.
1st. You propose to account for the absence of the body of Jesus, by supposing, that some persons by frightening the guards were enabled thereby to convey the body away, which they did being willing that Jesus should be thought to have risen from the dead, whereby he would be deified, according to the notions of the Greeks respecting deifying men after they were dead, &c. Those who thus stole the body were not the disciples of Jesus, but some persons who were desirous thereby to punish the Jews for so cruelly putting Jesus to death.