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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

I will ask you to consult the character of Daniel, and observe with
what genuine humility he pretends to divine inspiration, chap. ii.
xxx. "But as for me, the secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom
that I have more than any living, but that the secret might be made
known, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart." If
Daniel did not receive a divine revelation, it must be allowed that he
was deceived, or that he meant to deceive the king. But if he were
deceived, or if he meant to deceive, can you give any good account how
he could tell the king's dream and the interpretation, which reached
into the far distant periods of time, and which has been remarkably
fulfilled in the rise and fall of the four great empires of the world,
and is still fulfilling by the advances of the kingdom of Christ? I
will say nothing of the prophet Isaiah, who speaks of the Messiah more
than seven hundred years before he was born, as if he had been his
contemporary. Nor need I speak of Moses who foretold the dealings of
God with the house of Israel as if he had lived now and had written
their history. But I must insist on your paying some nice attention to
the prophesies of Christ concerning the destruction of Jerusalem. This
prophesy is recorded very circumstantially in the 24th of Matt. Be so
good, sir, as to compare this prophesy with the history written by
Josephus and let candor decide whether the author of that prophesy was
divinely inspired, or whether he was a poor deceived enthusiast.

If you allow that Jesus Christ was an honest man how is it possible
for you to deny his being divinely inspired? He certainly pretended to
foretell events; he most surely pretended to perform most astonishing
miracles. Of these facts we have as much evidence as we have that
there was such a man. Now, sir, if he were honest, he was divinely
inspired and endued, or he was an enthusiast even to insanity. And yet
in every instance, where the powers of his mind were tried, by the
profoundest learning, and sharpest wit that could be brought against
him, he discovered a mind as clear as light. A volume of vast extent
could not exhaust the subject I am now upon, but as you have the same
opportunity and means which I have to trace it, I shall insist on your
treating this subject with candor and shall expect you to acknowledge
that Jesus was divinely inspired, or show how he could be honest,
without this divine endowment.

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