_Much esteemed friend_,--Your fourth number is hereby acknowledged;
and though occasions for finding fault are in some measure extenuated,
it still appears that you have lost the real connexion of your
arguments, and have made the subject of the languages one of your main
subjects, when judging from your first number, it was no more than a
vestibule to the grand edifice which it was in your mind to examine.
However, you having paid more than half, we will not stand about the
fraction, as long as we have a profitable object in view. You call up
what you call the subject. I suppose the main subject. This you state
as follows: "In regard to a revelation from God, the three
propositions which you have stated answer my mind well enough, as far
as they go; to which however, I would wish to add a fourth, and ask;
admitting the three first particulars true.--4th. Is it reasonable to
suppose, that the apostles had any other means of forming their
opinions, relative to a future state, than what passed before their
eyes? viz. the miracles of Christ, the circumstance attending his
death, his resurrection, and the miracles wrought by themselves in his
name?" I wish, in this place, to show you that your added proposition
possesses no power relative to our argument which is not comprehended
in the last of the three which I stated. For if it be allowed, as you
propose, that my propositions are true, then you consent to the
validity of the apostles' testimony respecting a future state, which
granted, it makes no difference in what way the apostles come to the
knowledge of futurity. When a thing is known, it is known. The means
by which it is known add nothing to either side of the argument. If
you allow that my argument on this subject is correct, as it seems you
do, then you acknowledge that God would not endow men with the power
to heal the sick and raise the dead, whose testimony concerning a
future state could be justly doubted. I will not be too positive that
I rightly apprehend your meaning on this subject, but as you propose
to allow my three propositions, and as you make no attempt to do away
my reasoning, especially on my last, I think I should not understand
you according to your own proposal in any other way.
The methaphor which you use to help you away from my argument
respecting the _importance_ of a revelation from God, does not appear
fully adequate to the purpose for which you use it. It might not be a
reasonable, a necessary disposition of property for the proposed
benefactor, to give you a large estate; it might be, in the eye of
reason a very improper donation, and one which would deprive
legitimate heirs of what they had a right to expect from a father
towards whom they had always acted with filial obedience.--But if you
will make the case a parallel, and suppose you are an heir, a lawful
child, and your father has a large estate to dispose of, then you will
see that it is right and just, and no more than what you have reason
to expect; that it is necessary, and that this necessity is the
importance of the subject, you will at once see that this importance
is a reason, yea an evidence that you have a right to expect it. I
called on you to prove that no revelation was needed; I acknowledged
that if none was necessary, a being of infinite wisdom would make
none. You venture to say, that the "only evidence that reason can have
of the necessity of divine revelation is its truth." It is believed,
sir, that this hypothesis involves too much. It is saying that reason
can discern the necessity of nothing until it obtains it, whereas the
truth is evidently the other side of the assertion. We are frequently
experiencing the necessity of things which we have not already
attained, and by this want we are incited to use the means by which we
finally obtain them.--"Ask, and ye shall receive, seek, and ye shall
find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you," &c. It is believed, and
no doubt it may be argued with success, that the moral and religious
state of man really required a divine revelation. Never did the
parched ground, the withering plant, the thirsty herds need the
showers from heaven, more than man, that WORD of life which descended
as the rain and distilled as the dew, when the gospel was published by
a cloud of faithful witnesses, called of God for that purpose.
After acknowledging that your words admit of the construction which I
gave them respecting the apostles stating no more than what was
substantially true, you inform me that you meant something very
different; then, sir, it seems you must mean that they stated that
which is not true. And if so, why do you not prove wherein they
testified falsely, which would at once cast their bands from us? By
this mean you would show that their testimony is deserving of no
credit.
On the subjects of your doubts, you recollected my request, that you
bring forward your reasons, &c. But in room of doing this you inform
me that your doubts are _involuntary_. But I wish to know if this
renders it improper for you to state your reasons for doubting? You
further inform me that your doubts do not amount to a confirmed
unbelief. Again, I would ask if it be necessary for you to wait until
you are a confirmed unbeliever before you state your reasons for
doubting the truth of the testimony which Christians call divine?
By these questions you will perceive that I am waiting for you, and if
I am not able to meet your arguments, I am ready on making the
discovery, to acknowledge your reasoning too strong for my weak powers
to manage.
Yours, &c.