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