John ShaqiResearch Library

Opening the text

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

It is, sir, the opinion of some very learned authors, who stand in the
very first rank, for candor and erudition, that the proofs of which
the gospel is susceptible are, in all respects, equal to what they
could have been in any other way concerted, within the reach of human
conception. This is going to a great length I confess; and yet I am
strongly inclined to their opinion. I will candidly state why I am
so.--1st. Taking the subject in the gross, I am convinced of the truth
of the gospel of Christ. Now as I believe this gospel is not of man,
but of God, I likewise believe that God in consummate wisdom has
planned the evidences by which it is and will be supported in the
world, until it fills the whole earth. 2d. As I believe that divine
wisdom has planned, ordered and directed all the means which will
finally operate as evidences in defence of the gospel, I cannot
believe that the wisdom or sagacity of man could have suggested a
chain of evidences which could so well have secured the cause to be
supported. And 3d. I have spent much time in reflecting and studying
on this momentous subject, some time in reading authors on both sides
of the question, a great deal of time in reading the scriptures, and
have come to this conclusion that no set of men ever lived in this
world that could either have planned such a scheme as the gospel, or
ever have invented such a chain of evidences for its support.

If the single miracle of the resurrection be considered, as the fact
on which all other facts relating to the gospel seem to rest, it is
confidently believed that no human invention could have concerted a
system so well calculated to secure the fact to all future
generations, as that which has been adopted by the divine economy. Had
the whole of the Jewish nation with their Gentile neighbours, together
with the Roman authorities, all confessed Christianity, being fully
convinced of the resurrection of Jesus, and had they inscribed all the
miracles recorded in the new testament on monuments which should defy
the hand of time to bring them to decay, it requires but a moment's
reflection to see that all this would have vastly increased the
difficulty now to prove that it was not all contrived by man's
invention.

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

No reviews yet