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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.Ballou, Hosea

Religion

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.

Name: 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.
Author: Ballou, Hosea

Ballou, Hosea

Revelation; Universalism -- Doctrines

"There might be persons, however, who thought that Jesus suffered
death very wrongfully although he never pretended literally to perform
those miracles. Yea I conceive it possible that when this language was
first adopted, i. e. of his feeding the hungry, opening the eyes of
the blind, raising the dead, &c. it was not understood, nor meant to
be understood literally. Therefore although the account at first might
have been _literally false_, though not so much so as what it grew to
be afterward, yet it might have been considered _spiritually true_;
and therefore not designed absolutely to deceive. The only difficulty,
i.e. the only irreconcilable difficulty, which I conceive in the case,
is in supposing that the first disciples could be made to believe in
the resurrection, by any evidence which could have existed, and yet
the resurrection not to be true. But we must suppose this, I think, in
order to raise a reasonable doubt of the truth of the resurrection.
For, if the disciples did not believe it, they could have had no
interest or motive, (or certainly no justifiable motive) in making
others believe it; and without this, it is difficult to account even
for the existence of such a report. I should not think it so strange,
however, that others, after the report was once in circulation, and
that even St. Paul himself should have been made to believe this,
merely by some visionary scene.

"I think therefore the question may be reduced to this point. Which of
the two is the most _incredible_, either that the first disciples
should absolutely believe in the resurrection, by any evidence which
did not grow out of this truth, or that the resurrection should have
been absolutely true?

"Here is where the two propositions, when reduced to their simplicity
must finally come. And I contend that when two propositions are thus
clearly placed before the mind or understanding, whether the judgment
be right or wrong, the mind or understanding must reject, yea it is
impossible to avoid rejecting, that which to the mind or
understanding, is the most incredible.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.