school theology, has discussed this subject with admirable comprehensiveness and clearness in his Sermons on the "Subsistence of the Soul of Man after Death," and on the "Middle State." The following argument drawn from philosophy appears too cogent to admit of a satisfactory answer: though an attempt has been made to obviate it by the hypothesis of the continued preservation of some particle of the human organic structure, which is to be the nucleus or germ of the future glorified body.

"If the soul be not a permanent substance, but only a quality which is extinguished when the body dies, the same numerical man cannot rise after death: because the form or soul which perished cannot be numerically the same with the form or soul which is restored. This is numerically another: because between that which perished and that which is restored, there intervened a nihilum or non-entity. Whenever between two extremes a medium is interposed of a different kind, these two cannot be numerically the same, though they may be the same specifically. That is numerically one, which is contained in one common term: that is one line which is not cut off or interrupted, and that one motion which is not discontinued by rest. But there is no common term between that which once was and perished, and that which is afterwards produced: for non-existence came between them, and therefore they are not numerically the same.”

The necessity, notwithstanding, of a bodily resurrection, or, as Paul expresses it, the "being clothed upon " with some

sort of body adapted to our future mode of existence, is intelligently argued: "If a resurrection cannot be defended unless we assert the permanence and subsistence of man's soul after death, so a necessity of the resurrection of the body follows. The body is not adventitious to the man, but an essential part of man: Gen. ii. 7,-" man became a living soul." That taken out of the earth, and that breathed into it by God made in the whole one living man: the soul being here put for the whole man. The soul alone not constituting human nature, the being called man, if the body were not restored, would remain a half man, or a part of himself. If he had not sinned, the union of soul and body would have been permanent and uninterrupted." With respect to the other hypothesis of the sleep of the soul, Dr. Bull argues, that as the soul's life is perception, to say an insensible soul is a contradiction in terms: and that without sense and perception, the soul cannot subsist, or remain a soul.

To the individual personally, the alternative of immediate consciousness in a middle state, or of ultimately recovered perception at the resurrection, may seem indifferent: although the idea of the suspension of being for so long and indefinite a period appears chill and comfortless to the imagination. But it is not so, with regard to the survivors of departed friends. To believe that they whom we have lost are actually in continued possession of their intellectual existence, and in a condition of blissful consciousness and foresight, is a source of elevated consolation, which he who thinks that the evidence from

philosophy and revelation preponderates in favor of suspended or extinguished being, cannot possess. They who are in this manner sufferers will naturally wish the popular theory to be true, and will be anxious to obtain additional testimony in its favor.

NOTE 5.-P. 6.

And their exulting spirits spring to thine.

There is in Spence's Anecdotes a random remark of Pope, that perhaps our notion of meeting our friends in a future world may be like that of the Indians, who expect to find there their dogs and horses. If this be so, it can only be said that "we are of all beings most miserable." The conclusion, however, is one of those vague conjectural possibilities which form the whole tissue of natural religion; and it is directly opposed by the concurrent evidences and declarations of scripture. The re-appearance of Elijah and Mosesthe resurrection of Jesus himself, and the prophetic intimation that his followers who are alive upon the earth at his coming, "shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air" and "be for ever with the Lord," decidedly imply individual recognition and a social state of existence in regard to those, who have been peculiarly connected in this life.

Of this expectation, and indeed of every other which respects our interest in a state beyond the grave, there is at present among certain self-thought philosophic spirits, a busy anxiety to deprive us. Attempts are made to re-accommodate

Paine

to the popular palate the crudities of Paine, who was as ignorant of the nature of the biblical writings, as of the history of Christianity; and whose mistatements and false assumptious have been refuted in the aggregate and in detail by Watson, by Wakefield, and by Priestley. If, notwithstanding the testimony of completed prophecy in the state of the Jews and of the Christian churches, (whose divisions, so far from belying their divine origin, are important means by which Providence works to purify them from the errour of apostacy, and exercise at once their vigilance and their charity;) if, notwithstanding these perpetuated living testimonies, Christianity must be set aside, it is not easy to comprehend why we should believe in a future state at all. thought it as natural that he should continue to exist after death, as that he should have had no being before he began to exist; but why are we obliged to think the same? The more natural inference would be, that as he did not live before his body, neither could he expect to survive it. Should it be proved by the researches of philosophy that human thought is the result of organization, the hope of the Deist's immortality must perish with his body. Paine said that the book of nature was the word of God. Yet the greater part of mankind, with this book before their eyes, fell into all sorts of abominations: burnt their children as offerings to demons, or dead men, and "set themselves to work all uncleanness with greediness." If this book reveal a God or Supreme Architect (though the vulgar worshipped the

sun and

planets as their gods, and the philosophers supposed God and nature to be one and the same), how does it reveal a future state of being?-But the Atheist, who has had the reading of this volume as well as the Deist, perceives only the causation of a certain subtle energy of matter, terminating in itself: and he has at least as much authority for his doctrine as the Deist has for his. He will contend that, in supposing matter to be operated upon by a self-caused series of forces, he only transfers to nature the same principle of uncaused power, which the Deist is compelled to ascribe to his intelligent first mover. Deliberately speaking, in what the superiority of the Deist to the Atheist consists, though Bishop Watson so readily concedes it, I confess myself unable to discover. The Deist is always scandalized at the extermination of the Canäanites: the Atheist will assent to his proposition that such a transaction is unworthy of a benevolent being: he gives up the GOD of the JEWS, but he naturally asks, when this transaction took place, where was the GOD of the DEISTS ?—and when he presses upon his adversary the massacre of Ismäel and the earthquake of Lisbon, the Deist resorts to the logic of the Bramins; who having placed the earth on an elephant, said that the elephant was supported by a tortoise. replies that God is too lofty a being to interfere with what passes upon the earth; and the Atheist triumphantly rejoins, "Where then is the proof or necessity of any God at all ?—A God who is without moral attributes, (for these can only be seen in his moral agency ;) a God who is mere intelligence;

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