"I am at a loss also to understand, what you mean by a 'divine mission.' You inform me that I misapprehended you 'in supposing that' you 'mean to contend, that what the apostles have said respecting a future state, was spoken by way of _conclusions_ from certain known facts.' Here, I must confess, I am really at a loss to understand you: how that either Jesus, or his apostles, could understand a divine mission, even if they had received one, unless it were by _conclusions_ from _certain known facts_, that is, facts well known to them, I cannot conceive; and therefore must have some further explanation on this subject before I can fully answer you. For I must be better informed than I am at present, what you mean by a _divine mission_, before I can see the necessity of 'denying the reality of those miracles--or of granting the authority of their (Christ and his apostles) testimony;' that is, in regard to a future state. But even if I should be made to see this, it would be of no use for the present; because as it respects the final issue of the argument, I have not, neither do I now admit the reality of those miracles: as you must have seen by my seventh number. "The next particular which demands notice is the quoted passage which I pronounced _Most excellent_! "Here a serious query suggests itself to my mind. I ask myself: am I, or am I not, as capable of writing my sentiments, so as to be understood by a rational man, as those plain illiterate men who wrote the gospels? And yet if my words are so wrested by logical _twisticisms_ (if I may be allowed to use that expression) so as to mean what never entered my heart, and all this with apparent serious candor too, what may have been the fate of the writings of the evangelists? Now this is something in which I cannot be deceived, i. e. as it respects myself; for any man of common sense does know his own meaning, whether his words fully express his meaning or not, or whether they may be made to mean something else or not.