A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation by Hosea Ballou

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"What can we suppose that Paul meant by Christ's being seen _of above
five hundred brethren at once_? Is it at all likely that such an
extraordinary circumstance should have happened without any mention
being made of it in either of the five histories which we have of
those times? Might he not mean the same which the author of the Acts
means, speaking of the day of Pentecost? And therefore the whole might
not have been designed to be understood literally, but spiritually
true? And notwithstanding the literality of the language, may not all
the miracles of Christ and the apostles, and even the account we have
of the resurrection, be all accounted for and reconciled in the same
way? But here I involve myself in difficulty again; for, if I mistake
not, this was very near the opinion of the Gnostics, whom the apostles
and fathers every where spake against.--'These,' says Dr. Priestley,
'taught that it was not _Jesus_ that was properly _the Christ_, or
that he had not flesh and blood like other men.' They also 'denied the
doctrine of the resurrection.' These therefore, 'Paul, Peter, Jude,
and John, most strenuously opposed.' Again, says he, 'The apostles
they considered as judging only by their senses, which were deceived
in this case: and though they gave entire credit to them with respect
to every thing which they had seen, or heard, they considered them as
plain unlettered men who were ignorant of what was not within the
sphere of their senses.' To these it is supposed that John alludes in
his first Epistle iv. 1--3. If, therefore, the apostles did believe,
and contend for the literal resurrection, and personal appearing of
Jesus, and if in this they were opposed by the Gnostics, even in their
day; there is no way now, that I see, any longer for me to maintain my
doubts only by believing that the first disciples, as well as Paul,
thought they saw Jesus when in fact they did not, and that the idea of
miracles by which these things were said to have been propagated and
which carried conviction to the multitudes, was nothing more than the
bold figurative language of the day, designed, in reality, to deceive
no one; or else mere exaggerations: or, what perhaps is still more
probable, partly of both. But enough!

"I confess I begin to grow dissatisfied with this kind of reasoning.
What does it all amount to? What am I bringing, after all, to oppose
the laboured researches of Drs. Lardner, Paley, Priestley, and others,
as well as the pertinent observations of my worthy friend who has so
long borne with me, and obliged me with his friendly and
christian-like aid on this subject? Let me pause and consider--I have
acknowledged that there are evidences in favour of divine revelation;
have I proved any of those evidences false?--No! this I have
acknowledged I could not do. What have I put into the other end of the
scale, to weigh down those evidences? Ah! what indeed! Nothing! except
it be my own ignorance, and the errors of other men, in whose errors I
have no more faith than those who believe in the truth of that which I
have been disputing! I will therefore, instead of pursuing the dispute
any further, begin to think once more whether the thing for which you
so ardently contend may not in reality be true.

"But, here again, I must be cautious, lest I should err as far on the
other hand. For notwithstanding when I found that I could not help
doubting, I tried to reconcile myself to my doubts, and have sincerely
and honestly tried to make myself believe that I was perfectly
reconciled either way; yet the moment I begin to think about the
certainty of immortality and eternal life, I am all on fire! I hardly
know how to contain myself! And were it not for the special
obligations, which I feel to my family, and to the world, more than
any thing which I ever expect to receive from the world, I should long
to 'depart, and be with Christ, which is far better.' Thus my doubts,
whatever they are, may be needful for me.

"Your remarks respecting my claims to the privilege of one who is weak
in the faith are very pertinent and just. For I must confess in
proportion as my doubts arose, as to the truth of the resurrection,
equal doubts would arise as to the propriety of preaching it for a
truth. I wish you to understand, however, that my mind has never been
settled there, if it has ever vibrated that way, it was only
momentary, and rather on mere supposition than any confirmed opinion.

"In answer to what you say in regard to hope, I will only add: Though
a man should have ever so firm a hope in any thing whatever, and
should afterwards find that his hope was founded in error, the hope
would be taken away; but if at the same time he should find that the
truth is absolutely better than the error hoped for, he would also
find that a better thing is given in lieu of his hope: but if a man
has hope, though that hope should be founded in error, if the hope
remain as long as the man exists, it is not taken away from him, as
both cease to exist together. Once more, and finally: a hope which is
founded in truth, a knowledge of the truth can never take away.
Although a man may hope, and ardently desire to exist eternally, yet I
do not see how a man can extend either his hope, or his desires,
beyond the possibility of his existence. To my understanding, this is
just like supposing that a man which does not exist may yet hope and
desire; or that a man may hope and desire, after he shall have ceased
to exist.

"After returning you my sincere thanks for your kind indulgence and
labours of love, I shall close the present number. I cannot take my
leave of this number, however, without expressing my humble gratitude
to the Allwise disposer of events, that he has given such abundant
manifestations of his unspeakable goodness to his creatures; that he
has also, as I may perhaps be permitted to hope with you, given a
divine testimony of his infinite love and universal benevolence to
that part of his creation whom he hath distinguished with the
attributes of his own nature, regarding at the same time all other
beings and things, and that he had raised up so many faithful
witnesses who have set to their seals that this testimony is true.

"Yours, &c.

A. KNEELAND."

* * * * *

LETTER VIII.

_Dear sir, and brother_,--The particulars contained in your ninth
letter, which I have selected as the subject of this, are the
following:

1st. You "do not see how the miracles of the Shakers are at all
dependant on the miracles of Jesus for their imposition."

2d. You think, if Jesus had remained on the earth until now, or had
appeared to every generation since his resurrection, the evidence
would have been much greater; and yet not so great as to preclude the
exercise of our reasoning faculties.

3d. In the supposed controversy between the Unitarians and
Trinitarians, you think I have failed of making the case a parallel
with my subject, not considering the great change which took place in
the state of the Jews in consequence of their destruction by the
Romans.

4th. The argument which you rest on the supposition, that the apostles
did in reality believe in the resurrection of Jesus, when in fact the
thing was not true.

5th. What you say of the necessity of miracles in some future time, to
confirm the belief of those which have been.

6th. The difficulty you suggest concerning St. Paul's saying that
Jesus was seen, after his resurrection, by more than five hundred
brethren at once.

1st. As you object to the idea that the miracles of the Shakers depend
at all on the miracles of Jesus for their imposition, it may be
considered sufficient, on my part, if I show that you have fully
supported the proposition which you profess not to see.

I will, however, first presume, that I am not authorised to say that
the miracles of the Shakers are imposition, I have not contended that
they are; the ground for which I contend is this, viz. if these or any
other pretended miracles among us are impositions, they depend on the
miracles of Jesus for this power, as much as counterfeit money depends
on the true for its imposition. That you have given sufficient support
to what I have stated, you will see at once by the following passage
quoted from your arguments on this subject: "They do not deny the
miracles of Christ and his apostles any more than Christians in
general deny the miracles of Moses and the prophets; but appeal to
_theirs_ as being equally of divine origin, and thereby clothe their
religion with the same divine authority." Is it possible that the
writer of the foregoing sentence should not see, that he established
the very thing which he had just said he could not see? What is that
_divine authority_ with which the religion of Moses, the prophets and
of Christ is clothed? Answer, _miracles_. What authority do you
pretend the Shakers make use of to clothe their religion? Answer "_the
same_." How does this differ from counterfeit money, on the
supposition that these miracles are imposition?

It is abundantly evident that the Jews expected that the Messiah, when
he came, would establish his character by miracles as Moses did his,
and as some of the prophets were enabled to do. Therefore, do we read
Matt. xii. 22, 23.--"Then was brought unto him one possessed with a
devil, blind and dumb: and he healed him insomuch, that the blind and
dumb both spake and saw. And all the people were amazed and said, is
not this the son of David?"

Jesus himself saith, Luke iv. 24, 27. "Verily I say unto you, no
prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you of a truth,
many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was
shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout
all the land; but unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta,
a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow; and many lepers were
in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was
cleansed, saveing Naaman the Syrian."--See John vii. 31. "And many of
the people believed on him, and said, when Christ cometh, will he do
more miracles than these which this man hath done?"

By the foregoing quotations, as by many other passages, we learn that
the Jews expected the Messiah would establish his character as a
prophet like unto Moses and others, and also that Jesus did in reality
a multitude of miracles more than the prophets did.

Now is it not evident, that if the miracles of Jesus were supposed to
be impositions, they were dependant on those of Moses and the prophets
for any power to impose on the people? Just so are all miracles
wrought or pretended to be wrought since Christ, dependant on his
miracles for any imposing power which they possess. If our religion
had not been first propagated by the means of those miracles which are
recorded in the New Testament, of what use would any pretended
miracles be to any sect of Christians?

2d. What you say of the greater evidence of the resurrection which
would have been furnished by Christ's continuance on earth until now,
or by his making his appearance in every generation since his time,
appears to me to be rather wanting in its merits by which it claims a
reply.--Why should you neglect to delineate some special reasons for
your suppositions, by showing how wide the difference would have been
from the evidence we now have, and how that difference would have
recommended your scheme?--You have left me to conjecture the
particular features of your argument, and if I mistake them, you will
reply that I understand you incorrectly. However, this is the way I
must proceed.

We will suppose then that Jesus, in room of ascending into heaven, had
remained on earth. Would this have done any good, unless he had made
himself known to all the people? Well, we will suppose he had made
himself known after his resurrection, to the whole house of Israel,
would the people not have believed? They would have believed most
assuredly, or his making himself known to them would have done no
good. If they had all believed they would not have persecuted the
religion of Christ, all would have embraced it at once being convinced
by their eyes, that Jesus who was crucified, had actually rose from
the dead, and was not subject to death any more. All this would have
been as evident to the Roman government as to the Jewish hierarchy,
and the whole would have been christianized at once. How long would
all this remain a wonder? Jesus remains on earth from generation to
generation. How long ago would the conjecture have arisen, that this
man who has lived through so many ages, had always been here on earth,
and that the tradition of his once having been mortal like other men,
was nothing but a superstition gotten up in some age of antiquity
beyond our reach? There would have been no occasion of preserving any
records of the wonderful works of Jesus in the days of his flesh, for
as the whole would become immediately connected to christianity, there
would have been no necessity nor excitement to write and preserve the
accounts we have in the gospel, or if they had been written, they
could have had no support now but ancient tradition. Not one martyr,
not one instance of persecution, not a Celsus in the second, a
Porphyry in the third, nor a Julian in the fourth centuries to oppose
the truth, and thereby bear testimony to the antiquity of the
christian history.

This immortal man would be here on earth, and the sun and the moon and
the stars would be in the heavens, the mountains and the rivers here
on earth; and the same mind that would conjecture that all these
visible things were from everlasting to everlasting, would make no
exception of this man Christ Jesus. But now you are called on to prove
your christian tradition; and what have you to convince the Deist
with? Will you say my conjectures are by no means correct? Well, I
expected it would turn out so. You mean then that Jesus should not
only remain on earth, but that he should continue the evidences of his
having been mortal, of his having died, and of his resurrection as
clear as they were when they convinced the world in the first
place.--Would there, in this case, be any room for any inquiry? any
for doubts? Would there be as many denominations of christians as
there are now? Should we get at this religion by reasoning? Perhaps
you would prefer your second proposal, and have Jesus manifested in
every generation. But this would have been a regular return of the
same event, and would have been placed among the phenomena of nature,
and the Deist would say that there never had been any beginning to
this regular operation, it has always been so from time beyond date.

Thus far, but no more. The evidences of our religion are like the
religion itself, infinitely superior to any thing ever contrived by
human wisdom. And it is an opinion in which I am the more confirmed,
the more I examine it, that if the wisest set of philosophers which
ever lived on earth had been a council to contrive a method by which
christianity could have been perpetuated in the world, that scheme
which they would have projected, would of itself defeated the object.

The wisdom of this great scheme corresponds with the divine power
which has been manifested in it. What set of impostors, either wise or
simple, learned or unlearned would ever have thought of such an
undertaking as that of which we have an account in the four
evangelists? Would they be likely to find one who would be their
leader, the one to die, and leave the rest to make the people believe
that he arose from the dead? Could a man be found now who would be
willing to undertake such a piece of madness and folly? If we pretend
to reason shall we not keep to human nature, and reason according to
those laws by which ourselves and others are governed?

Do you believe, sir, that a man could be found who would undertake to
lead a party, whose object should be to impose on the people by a
pretended resurrection, and consent himself to be the hero of this
imposture?

You answer, no. But then ask; if this wonderful story was not written
some considerable time after that period to which the dates of the
writings are assigned, and such large additions made that the whole
appears entirely different from what was really true?

This brings me to consider the third particular selected for
consideration, out of your epistle.

3dly. In allusion to the supposed controversy between the Unitarians
and Trinitarians, you think I ought to have considered the
circumstance of the destruction of the Jews by the Romans, as giving a
favourable opportunity for the fabricating the books of the
evangelists, and of giving them success in the world, as the old
pharisees and rulers of the Jews were principally cut off in that
awful destruction of their nation and city.

You will observe that by your suggestion you leave the first section
of the argument to which you refer, in which no book or books were
used, and notice only the last section in which you were indulged, for
sake of the argument, in the supposition that the gospels were not
written until after the destruction of Jerusalem, nor propagated on
the miracles on which the gospels have founded it. Here, sir, have I
not an occasion of some little complaint? If you really thought that
the gospels were, none of them, written in the life time of the
apostles, and considered it safe to predicate an argument on this
ground, why should you withhold the proof of this fact? Why did you
not inform me of the authority by which your argument is supported in
your own mind? And furthermore, why do you try to get away from the
argument as stated in its first form, without showing its want of
force, or without allowing its merit? By conducting arguments in this
way, in room of converguing them to some definite point of conclusion,
they are diverged indefinitely, and the mind seems bewildered without
an object.

However, I am disposed to follow you, and will now endeavour to shew
the probability of the gospel's having been written even before the
destruction of Jerusalem.

The following passages are quoted from Paley's evidences from page 106
and on--

From the epistle of Barnabas, to which I have before alluded; "Let us,
therefore, beware lest it come upon us, as it is written, there are
many called, few chosen." Our author justly adds: "From the
expression, '_as it is written_,' we infer with certainty, that, at
the time when the author of this epistle lived, there was a book
extant, well known to christians, and of authority among them,
containing these words--'Many are called, few chosen.'" For the
authority of this epistle I refer unto Clement of Alexandria, Origen,
Eusebius, and Jerome, noticed in a former communication. If Clement
were liable to mistake the author, it seems hardly probable that he
would be deceived concerning the time when this epistle, purporting to
have been written by Barnabas, was written; as it is no later than
A.D. 194 that he quotes this epistle as an ancient work. It may be
proper to remark, that although authors differ respecting the
genuineness of this epistle, both Dr. Priestly and Paley acknowledge
and maintain its antiquity, and place it very near to the time of the
destruction of Jerusalem, which gives it all the authority for which
it is here quoted; for the thing now to be proved is, that it is
probable that the gospel of Matthew was written before the destruction
of the Jewish hierarchy. Now as this epistle of Barnabas was written
soon after this destruction, and refers to the gospel of Matthew in
the manner above quoted, as refering to what was an acknowledged
writing of scripture authority, it seems reasonable to infer that St.
Matthew's gospel had been written long enough before, to obtain its
establishment among Christian churches, which fairly throws its
antiquity anterior to the destruction of Jerusalem. Sir, I see nothing
to forbid this conclusion from being highly probable, and this, I
expect to show, is all that is necessary to be made out in this case.

"Of Polycarp," who was appointed bishop of Symrna by the apostles
themselves, says our author, "we have one undoubted epistle remaining.
And this, though a short letter, contains nearly forty clear allusions
to books of the New Testament; which is strong evidence of the respect
which christians of that age bore for those books." It appears from
this account, that, as Polycarp was a contemporary of the apostles,
and referred to the books of the New Testament in his writings, as to
books of established authority, these books must have been written as
early as the time in which their reputed authors lived, which places
their date prior to the destruction of Jerusalem; as it is not
pretended that any of the evangelists continued until after the
destruction of that city except St. John who is supposed to have lived
to a very great age.

One more from our author: "Papias, a hearer of John, and companion of
Polycarp, as Irenæus attests, and of that age, as all agree, in a
passage quoted by Eusebius, from a work now lost, expressly ascribes
the respective gospels to Matthew and Mark, and in a manner which
proves that those gospels must have publicly borne the names of these
authors at that time, and probably long before." All this appears
perfectly consistent with the idea that these gospels were written by
the evangelists themselves, and proves together with the following
considerations the probability of its being correct. Further
considerations to be taken into the foregoing account are the
following. St. Matthew, St. Luke and St. Mark, all speak of the
prophesy of Jesus respecting the destruction of Jerusalem, but do not
even hint that this prophesy had been fulfilled. In St. John's gospel
no mention is made of this prophesy, and it is reasonable enough to
suppose that this omission was on account of the prophesy's having
been fulfilled before his gospel was written.

Again, if the gospels had not been written by these reputed authors,
nor in the time that the evangelists lived, but some time after the
destruction of Jerusalem, and these had been fabricated by designing
men, they would certainly have been exposed as a fraud by the Gnostics
who held many opinions so very contrary to the scriptures of the New
Testament. So very contrary were some of the early heresies to the
writings of the evangelists that they erased many things from them
that they might the better maintain their own notions. Now this would
never have taken place if these Gnostics could have proved that these
Gospels were frauds, which they certainly could have done, for they
existed as early as these writings are supposed to have been written.
Furthermore, if the gospels had been forged books, written after the
destruction of Jerusalem, it would have been an easy task for Celsus
to have exposed the whole fraud. He certainly would never have
admitted the truth of the miracles of Jesus if he could have proved
that the books in which they were recorded were forgeries. But this
neither he nor the learned Porphyry attempted to do.

I have suggested, that, if the probability of the gospel's having been
written before the destruction of Jerusalem and by the evangelists
themselves be proved it is sufficient for our present argument. And
so, I think, it will appear to you, when you combine with this
probability two more important considerations.

1st. That the internal evidences contained in the books of the New
Testament, of their genuineness, are sufficient of themselves to
establish their character as such; and:

2d. That the above probability of itself is to be relied on even from
external evidence if no external proof can be proved against it, which
is not pretended.

It should be kept in mind, that the writings of the evangelists are
guarded by the early attacks of the enemies of christianity, who ever
treated them as being, what they pretended to be, a faithful history
of the origin of the religion they inculcated; and also by the
opposition of the early sects who arose from the church, who would
have demolished their foundations if they had been spurious.

4th. The argument you rest on the supposition that the apostles did,
in reality, believe in the resurrection of Jesus, when in fact the
thing was not true, may now be noticed.--As you would naturally
expect, I shall by no means allow either your premises or conclusions.

1st. Why should I allow your premises? You have brought no argument,
nor attempted to bring any to disprove what I contended for, viz. that
the apostles could not have been persuaded to believe the resurrection
with any evidence short of that recorded in the evangelists. "Here,"
you say "lies the mistake if there be any;" and to this I agree. Where
then is your argument against mine, on which so much depends? You have
attempted to bring none. But you say: "only suppose the resurrection
to have been actually believed, by any evidence, or circumstance
whatever, no matter what." What argument is there sir, in this "_only
suppose_?" I contend the thing is not supposable. It was as true in
that age of the world, that a fact naturally incredible requires
indubitable evidence to substantiate it, as it is now. I would allow
that it is supposable, that one man might, in a sort of a delirium,
which generally throws the brain into a situation, by which, what only
exists in the mind, appears a reality to the sense of sight, might
think he saw Jesus after his crucifixion, when in fact he did not. But
I cannot allow it to be a supposable case that the whole eleven
apostles should all become delirious at once and with them a number
more, and all be persuaded against the prejudices of their minds, that
they saw Jesus, and that at a number of times, and in diverse manners,
when there was no such thing. But:

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