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.
Ballou, Hosea
Revelation; Universalism -- Doctrines
I will now inquire whether it is reasonable to suppose that less
evidence would have effected such conviction?--And on the other hand,
I will ask whether stronger proof could in the nature of things be
given? And lastly, to come to our object again, does such evidence
possibly admit of being counterbalanced? I understand that these
questions admit of no other answers than such as go to show, that if
there be any evidence of the resurrection of Jesus, sufficient to
support it, if there were no evidence to counterbalance it, such
evidence is not capable of being counterbalanced.--You will perceive
that our reasoning must issue in the truth of the resurrection, unless
we assume the extravagant notion, that the people who lived in
Jerusalem and its vicinity, at the time of the crucifiction of Jesus,
were not brought over to believe it.
It is hoped that no objection will be brought from the circumstance of
the rejection of the gospel by the rulers of the Jews, and by the
major part of that hierarchy, as long as it is perfectly evident that
their opposition and unbelief were indispensably necessary for the
fulfilling of the prophecies, for the carrying of conviction to the
Gentiles, and for the purpose of perpetuating the necessary evidences
on which we, at this day, must rest our belief of this religion.
4th. You hardly know how to understand me when I suggest, that in
disproving the religion of Jesus Christ, you disprove all religion,
&c. I think I added, that there is no choosing between this religion
and some other, we must have this, or none.
By the religion of Jesus Christ, I mean to comprehend all that the
doctrine of the scriptures encourage us to believe in and hope for,
and also all that this doctrine requires, also all that it teaches us
to expect as resulting from obedience and disobedience. I am fully
persuaded that you never can disprove this religion, so as to do away
its effects on your own mind. Its maxims contain all the morality you
know of, and all that a Deist calls natural religion, he has been
taught from the revealed wisdom of God. The further you advance into
the society of man, where the light of the holy scriptures has least
extended, so much the more do you lose sight of the moral virtues; and
so much the more do you lose sight of the simple unity and divine
benevolence of God.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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