Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/appealinbehalfof00nobl_1 AN APPEAL IN BEHALF OF THE VIEWS OF THE ETERNAL WORLD AND STATE, AND THE DOCTRINES OF FAITH AND LIFE, HELD BY THE BODY OF CHRISTIANS WHO BELIEVE THAT A NEW CHURCH IS SIGNIFIED (IN THE REVELATION, CHAP. XXI.) BY THE NEW JERUSALEM EMBRACING ANSWEES TO ALL PRINCIPAL OBJECTIO / By THE REV. S. NOBLE, Late Minister of the New Jerusalem Church, Cross Stiuet, Hatton Garden, London. " For we have not followed cunningly devised fables."— 2 Peter i. 16. " Beware, therefore, lest that come upon you which is spoken of in the prophets : Behold, yt despisers, and wonder, and perish : for 1 work a work in your days, a work which yp shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you."— Acts xiii. 40, 41 ; llab. 1. 5. SIXTH EDltlON. LONDON : PUBLISHED BY THE NEW CHURCH MISSIONARY AND TRACT SOCIETY, 36, BLOOMSBURY STREET. 1867. LONDON : BRADBIRY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEIT.UR3. ADVERTISEMENT. This edition of the " Appeal " has been printed at the express wish of numerous members of the New Church, as a memento of the Author and a testimony of their estimate of its excellence ; and they have by their subscriptions enabled the Committee of the Cross Street- Society to stereotype the work and issue it to the public at the present nominal price. A brief Memoir of the Author, written by the Rev. William Bkuce, has been prefixed to the work. * MEMOIR OF THE RET. SAMUEL NOBLE. Samuel Noble was born in London on the 4th day of March, 1779. His father, who was a bookseller, and the author of a work of great merit on the " Elements of Linear Perspective," died when the son was five years old. His mother, on whom the entire charge of a young family now devolved, united great prudence and tenderness in the management of her children. The son has dwelt feelingly on the admirable manner in which she discharged her maternal duties; and to her excellent instruc- tion and training he attributes the happiest experience of his after-life. After receiving a good education, including a sound knowledge of the Latin language, he was apprenticed to an engraver. He subsequently attained to eminence in his art, and was engaged on many of the principal architectural works of his time. His tastes and talents were, however, still more literary than artistic ; and some of his early productions do honour both to his head and his heart. He was, moreover, influenced by a strict religious principle, which rendered him exemplary in his conduct, and gained him the affection and confidence of those connected with him. It was while he was yet a young man that a circumstance occurred, which, though not very extraordinary in itself, had a powerful effect upon his mind ; and winch, no doubt, pre- pared the way for the great change which shortly afterwards took place in his religious views, and led him eventually to devote his talents, and indeed his whole life, to the service of the Lord and his neighbour, as a religious teacher and writer. He has himself recorded this circumstance and its results ; and his statement is so interesting and instructive, and gives vi MEMOIR OF THE KEV. SAMUEL NOBLE. so clear an insight into the state and character of his mind, that it is here given in his own words. " When I was about the age of sixteen/' he writes, " I was present in a large company, composed chiefly of my rela- tions, in which Paine' s ' Age of Reason/ then lately published, was made a subject of conversation, and in which the book was produced, and portions of it were read ; I am sorry to say to the great amusement, and apparent enjoyment of most of the assembly. The style of that extraordinary combination of arrogance and ignorance (for such it really is) is well cal- culated to make a strong impression on the young and uninformed ; I can compare the effect of what I heard upon me, to nothing less than the striking of a dagger into my vitals. The agonising thoughts that took possession of my mind, and kept darting to and fro within me day and night, for the space of three weeks, are indescribable. The most distressing suggestion that was made to me, I well remember, was, that there- was no such Being, and never had been, as the Lord Jesus Christ; under which idea I felt, even at that time, though I had never reflected much about Him, as if I could not bear to exist : a more direful sensation accompanied the thought than would be experienced by the untutored savage, to whom the world is everything, should he awake in darkness with the horrible conviction that the sun had been blotted out of the firmament. I had no one to whom I felt at liberty to speak of what I suffered ; and the mere effect of time, and of my own reflections, was to increase, and not to allay, the perturbation of my mind. At length, on awaking one morning to the load of anxiety, which always seemed to fall upon me as soon as 1 returned to consciousness, this inquiry darted into my thoughts : — ' What is the reason that so many are possessed by such a hatred to the Bible ? ' And the answer occurred as instantaneously : — They wish to get rid of the belief of Revelation, that they may be free from its restraint : they love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.' The characters of all those of my acquaintance who were most violent in their hostility to the Word of God, MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL NOBLE. vii in a moment passed before me ; and I saw but too plainly the flaw in them all that they were anxious to conceal, by renouncing the authority that would condemn it. Never siuce have I seen more clearly the truth of that statement so often made in the doctrines of the New Church, — that evil is the prime root and origin of all false persuasions respecting religion, and especially of all positive enmity against the "W ord of God. All my anxiety vanished in an instant, and was succeeded by confidence and peace. Not a shadow of doubt respecting the authority of the Scriptures, as being a Bevela- tion from God, ever afterwards entered my mind; and I hope I shall ever be thankful to Divine mercy for thus awakening me to the importance of the subject, and so completely settling my convictions respecting it. After I had thus become so fully impressed with the truth and importance of the Word of God, I began to grow solicitous about its genuine doctrines, and desirous to acquire some positive assurance respecting the means of salvation which it offers. I began to be dissatisfied with the discourses on common morality, without touching upon any vital principle, or presenting anything either to affect the heart or to enlighten the under- standing, which I was accustomed to hear. I betook myself, therefore, to the diligent reading of the Scriptures ; and for about two years T never was without a small Bible or Testa- ment in my pocket, which I read as I walked along the streets, and at every other opportunity; and this, I have often thought, laid the foundation, from which I was brought to the assurance I so much desired, as to what the real doctrines of the Scriptures are. " My desire, at last, to obtain certain knowledge of the truth, and to be fully satisfied respecting the right way of salva- tion, grew so intense, as to fill me with constant anxiety. In seeking relief also from above, I began to be much disturbed with doubts as to the proper Object to whom prayer should be directed. I became conscious that my mind wandered from one Divine Being to another, and I sometimes felt exceedingly distressed with the apprehension, that, while I Viii MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL NOBLE. was looking to one, another might take umbrage ; so that I well know by experience what the effect is, upon truly serious minds, of entertaining an idea of more Divine Persons than one ; and that, call them as they may, a plurality of persons cannot be distinguished in the mind from a plurality of gods. In this state of perplexity it was, that the doctrines of the New Church were sent to my relief. In a remarkable manner, some of the works containing them were brought to my hands ; but I had heard some of the common calumnious reports, and began to read with much distrust and prejudice. The first book that I opened was the ' Treatise on Heaven and Hell.' I read some pages near the middle ; but meeting with some things that greatly contradicted my pre- judiced notions, I soon began to treat it with derision, and, at length, threw it down with contempt. Getting hold, however, of some of the doctrinal works, I speedily became very much interested. I saw, from the beginning, that every doctrine advanced must be the truth ; but I had imbibed so much of the common erroneous sentiments, as to dread the thought of embracing new ones, lest, erring from the faith, the consequences should be fatal. At length, I heard that there was a place where these doctrines were preached, and I went to hear. Whether what I then heard was more suited to my state of apprehension than what I had read, or whether it be that truth spoken by the living voice has a more power- ful influence than truth read in a book, I cannot say ; but I went away with a full assurance, that the doctrines advanced as those of the New Jerusalem must be those of the New Jerusalem indeed. I felt perfectly convinced that there could be no danger in venturing my salvation on their truth. I solemnly and devotedly resolved to do so. I dismissed all my former obscure notions of three Divine Persons, and the doctrines which require three distinct divinities for their support, to the winds. I cast my idols to the moles and to the bats : and all my anxieties and fears went with them. If I was convinced on the former occasion, that the Scriptures are assuredly the Word of God, I was now made as MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL NOBLE. IX thoroughly certain that the doctrines of the New Jerusalem are the genuine doctrines of the Scriptures : and never since, from that hour to this, has a doubt upon that subject been able to intrude itself upon my mind." No one can read this graphic account of his experience without being impressed with the depth of religious feeling in one so young. Yet he betrays no signs of religious enthu- siasm. His distress arose, in the first instance, from the threatened negation of his simple, but sincere, belief in the divinity of the Scriptures and of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; and, in the second instance, from the want which his reassurance created for a solid foundation of religious truth on which to rest his hope of salvation. His long-continued but unsuccessful efforts to obtain what he so much desired, either from the accredited teachers of religion, or immediately from the Scriptures themselves, show the very reverse of a heated imagination — they evince indeed a heart deeply anxious and distressed, but seeking relief by the patient exercise of the understanding. Full conviction and comfort seem to have come at once; but what was effected by the "living voice" of the preacher was no more than a happy confirmation of religious views and principles which he had slowly and cautiously received as the truth, but which his very fear of being deceived prevented him from embracing with all his heart. Prom the time that Mr. Noble became fully convinced of the truth of the doctrines of the New Church, he became a delighted attendant on the ministry of the Rev. J. Proud, the eloquent preacher by whom his faith had been sealed; and cast his lot amongst the little band who formed the visible church of the New Jerusalem at that period in this country. His excellent qualities soon brought him into favourable notice among the members of the church, and his abilities enabled him to become highly useful. Among many other services rendered to the cause which he so heartily espoused, he assisted in establishing, in 1810, the society now existing in London, for printing and publishing the writings of Swedenborg ; and, in 1812, the present periodical of the church, "The Intellec- X MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL NOBLE. tual Repository." His active zeal and useful labours mate- rially contributed to the success of both. Of the magazine he was principal editor for twenty-eight years, and during all that period was by far the largest contributor to its pages. It is however, as a minister, and as the author of those works which have been published under his name, that he is best known. An appreciation of his worth and talents had led to his being early pressed to render occasional service in the pulpit ; and on the death of Dr. Hodson, which occurred in 1812, he preached a sermon on the occasion, which was so much approved, that it was printed, and formed the first of his published discourses. So early as 1801, three years after his entrance into the church, Mr. Proud warmly encouraged him to come forward as a preacher, with the view of his devoting himself to the service of the church, expressing his conviction that Providence designed him for the ministry, and declaring his belief that his " dear young friend " would yet become eminent in the church. Pour years after, he was pressingly invited to become the stated minister of the congregation meeting for worship in Cross Street, the pulpit of which had become vacant, but he declined it on the ground of being too young ; a determination which his maturer judgment entirely approved. At length, in 1819, when the same congregation, then meeting in Lisle Street, was deprived of the services of Dr. Churchill, whose delicate health compelled him to retire from the active duties of the ministry, he was unanimously invited to fill the vacant office. Mr. Noble was at this time successfully engaged in his secular profession, which yielded him a much larger income than he had any expectation of ever deriving from the work in which he was invited to engage. He, however, after mature deliberation, consented to leave all, and obediently follow where the Lord appeared so evidently to lead. On Whit-Sunday of the following year, he was ordained a minister of the New Church, and then commenced that career of usefulness as a religious teacher and writer which he so long and successfully pursued. The MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL NOBLE. xi beneficial effects of his labours in his own congregation soon became manifest ; and a few years afterwards, it had become so prosperous as to be able to purchase the church in Cross Street, the pulpit of which he occupied till the infirmity fell upon him which deprived the society of his services. Not long after he had engaged in the ministry, his talents as a preacher became more extensively known in the church by means of a discourse he delivered at Dover, which was deservedly regarded as the production of a man to whom the church had reason to look forward with hope. The first part of that discourse, greatly enriched by copious notes, was subsequently published as a tract, and, under the title of "The True Object of Worship," has passed through many editions. The hopes which had been raised in the church by this lecture were more than realised by his subsequent performances; some of which are now to be noticed. In the year 1824, Mr. Noble was engaged by the London New Church Missionary Society, to deliver a course of six lectures in vindication of the Scriptures from infidel objections. This object he sought to effect by showing, from internal evidence, that the sacred Scriptures are a Divine Revelation. Other Christian advocates have attempted, not without partial success, to prove the truth of the Scriptures from internal evidence. But the ground assumed by the lecturer was entirely new. He showed that the Scriptures, as being a revelation from God, must be an expression of His Divine Love and Wisdom ; and that such a revelation, although uttered in natural language in the world, and accommodated to the apprehension and states of imperfect and fallen man, must contain within its rude and simple exterior stores of wisdom purely spiritual and Divine. As revelation and creation have the same Divine origin, and express and manifest the same infinite Love and Wisdom in different but kindred ways, there must be a perfect analogy or correspondence between them, and the works of God must be a means of illustrating His Word. The law of Analogy is, therefore, a law established by creation between spiritual and natural XI 1 MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL NOBLE. things; so that the natural or literal sense of the "Word, which is taken from nature, answers by analogy to its spiritual sense, which is derived from God out of Heaven, and which, in descending into the world, assumed the literal sense as its necessary and appropriate covering. By the application of this law, the lecturer showed how all the obscurities, incon- sistencies, and contradictions in the literal sense may be removed, and a sense clear, harmonious, and instructive, obtained. These lectures were favourably received by a large audience ; and, in compliance with urgent requests, the lecturer consented to their publication. But, in proceeding to prepare them for the press, the matter increased to three times its original amount. Yet, in the course of twelve months, appeared a work of extraordinary value* as a demonstration of the real divinity of the Scriptures, for its luminous expositions of numerous portions of their contents, ?nd for the harmony and beauty in which it exhibits the whole ( f that Divine revelation which a perfect God has given to imperfect man. The "Appeal" originated in a course of lectures delivered at Norwich, with the immediate view of answering objections and correcting misrepresentations which had been made respecting the church and her principles, by a dissenting minister of that place. These lectures were also deemed so excellent, that it was resolved to give them a wider circulation through the press. ■ And here, again, the fertility of the author's mino, and the facility of his pen, were manifested ; for the work expanded under his hand as he prepared it for the press. When published, it exhibited, however, no marks of haste, but had all the qualities of a treatise on which years of labour had been bestowed. No vindication of the doctrines of the New Church could be more complete. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose, from the occasion in which this work originated, that it is purely polemical. It is rather a Body of Divinity than a work of * "The Plenary Inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures asserted." MEMOIR OP THE REV. SAMUEL NOBLE. xiii controversy ; for while it removes difficulties and objections which may present themselves even to ingenuous minds on their entering on the study of the writings of the New Church, it gives a luminous exposition of the whole doctrines of Christianity. These two works may be regarded as the result, and almost as the history, of the author's experience. In them we have his mind, now enriched with knowledge and matured by experience, on those very subjects which in early life had so engaged his thoughts and distressed his heart. His luminous treatment of them, while it contrasts strongly with his former obscurity, is well calculated to convey to other minds, similarly conditioned, the blessings of light and conso- lation. Two other works succeeded these. In 1846, a volume of " Lectures on Important Doctrines of the Christian Religion/' was printed by the request, and at the expense, of the Man- chester Printing Society ; and, in 1848, the "Noble Society" published a volume of Sermons, in which the Divine Law of the Ten Commandments is explained, according to both its literal and its spiritual sense. In the first of these works, the author, with his characteristic force and clearness, explains the leading doctrines of the Christian religion. After having es- tablished from Scripture and reason the absolute unity of God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, he proceeds to show the true nature of the other doctrines of religion as resting upon, and existing in harmony with, that greatest truth of Revelation. As this work is designed to explain in its largest sense the doctrine of the Scriptures concerning the Lord, that on the Commandments is intended to explain their doctrine concerning the Christian life; and seven discourses are added to explain some passages of the Word that present some difficulties to the declaration of the Lord, " If thou wilt enter into life, keep the Commandments." In the preface to this volume, the author says, " "Whether it shall be followed by any others, may depend upon whether the Author shall be restored, through Divine mercy, from a visitation which threatens him with the total loss of sight." XIV MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL NOBLE. His fading sight proceeded from that disease of the eyes knowu by the name of cataract. For the removal he under- went several operations, but with no ultimately beneficial re- sult. By this severe visitation, Mr. Noble was shut out from the two primary sources of usefulness and delight — his pulpit and his books. His library was still his daily resort, but there he sat in darkness, unable longer to hold intercourse with the great and good, through their works, except when his friends, several of whom regularly attended him, supplied, as far as they could, the sense he had lost. Yet even this was not a period of inactivity. Jt was during this time that he revised his translation of Swedenborg's work on Heaveu and Hell, which he necessarily performed by the aid of his friendly amanuenses. Amongst those who engaged in this labour of love were several ladies, who were members of his congregation, and who, with the characteristic warmth and tenderness of the female heart, ministered to their aged and helpless pastor, whom they loved and venerated as a father ; and their attentions were the more necessary, as Mr. Noble had outlived his relations, and, from his retired habits, was averse to receiving the services of strangers. During the progress of the work on which he was engaged, they sat, like the daughters of Milton, writing to the dictation of their blind parent, and one of them at least reading to him Greek and Latin, which she did not understand. But he for whom they laboured had none of the severity of temper which the great poet is said to have manifested. It was always pleasant as well as profitable to be in his service, as it was to be in his company. Nor can that which his friends and casual visitors felt be called a melancholy pleasure. Sometimes, indeed, on first entering his apartment, a feeling of sadness fell upon the heart. But a few moments were sufficient to dispel the gloom. When conversation had fairly commenced, the idea of his condition passed almost entirely away. The serenity of his mind, the vigour of his understanding, and the playfulness of his fancy, made it evident that there was more occasion to MEMOIR OP THE REV. SAMUEL NOBLE. envy than to pity him. Some of his periodical visitors and oldest friends have remarked, that they have often been deeply impressed with a feeling of something more than earthly in his presence, in witnessing his sweet tranquillity of spirit, after he had passed through weeks of intense suffering, arising from acute and severe inflammation which followed some of the repeated operations he underwent for the recovery of his sight. And yet the sight for which he endured so much he never recovered. But even when hope was gone, and his health was greatly impaired by the long confine- ment which the surgical treatment to which he had so repeatedly submitted rendered necessary, he exhibited the same calm fortitude in resignation that he previously mani- fested in endurance. About two years after the completion of his translation, age and infirmity brought his days on earth to a close. After a period of rapidly increasing debility, and a short time of acute suffering, he gently breathed his last on the 27th of August, 1853. Mr. Noble's reputation as a writer on the highest subjects that can engage the attention of man, has been sufficiently established by the popularity of the present work, which has obtained a wider circulation than any of his others, only because it supplies a want which is more generally felt. The strong conviction in the church of its power of exten- sive usefulness is evinced by the circumstances which gave rise to the present edition. Highly esteemed as this work de- servedly is, it is not improbable that some of his posthumous writings may find a still warmer reception — at least amongst the members of the church. His expository are perhaps still more excellent than his dogmatic writings; for he possessed an extraordinary faculty of opening up the spiritual sense of the Word. He has left a large number of manuscripts chiefly of this character; and it is much to be desired that they should, with as little delay as possible, be committed to the press. As a man, Mr. Noble was highly esteemed without as well XVI MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL NOBLE. as within the church. His private life, according to the testimony of those who knew him longest and best, was that of a true Christian. His public life is before the church and the world, and may be read of all men. Amongst other traits of true excellence, he manifested in an eminent degree those characteristics of a great mind — a humble estimate of his own abilities and services, and a high appreciation of worth and talent in others. Of this v/e have instances in his excellent sermons on the death of two of his distinguished contemporaries and fellow-labourers. The first of these was the Rev. John Clowes, the venerable Hector of St. John's Church, Manchester, who did so much, by his translations of the works of Swedenborg, by his own writings, and by his preaching, to disseminate the truths of the New Church, and whose saintly life was a beautiful commentary on the pure principles of Christianity he had adopted and so long con- sistently maintained. The second was the Rev. Robert Hindmarsh, the ardent and talented advocate of the Heavenly Doctrines; author of the Letters addressed to Dr. Priestl)*, the philosopher and Unitarian, in answer to his strictures on the New Church, and which effectually silenced that powerful polemic ; and the originator of the first organisation having for its object the existence of the New Church as a separate religious body, an object which he lived to see realised beyond his most sanguine expectations. In speaking of these two eminent and excellent men, Mr. Noble pays them a tribute of high and just admiration, ascribing to them the merit of having been the devoted foster-fathers of the infant church, to whom future ages will look back as the human instruments of a singular. Providence, operating for the establishment on earth of the promised Church of the Ne^ Jerusalem. Although in these discourses the author seems unconscious of having the slightest claim to rank with these great worthies of the church, his name is and will be associated with theirs, as the earliest and most successful promoters of the cause of that pure Christianity, which is identical with the spiritual coming of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven, — a coming, not in MEMOIR OF THE KEV. SAMUEL NOBLE. xvii person, but in spirit and in power, — to commence a New- Church, in which the Tabernacle of God shall be with men, and they shall be His people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. As a pastor, Mr. Noble was greatly beloved by his congregation, who testified their affection for him by special acts, on several occasions, while he was yet amongst them ; and, after his removal, by erecting over his remains, in the Highgate Cemetery, a marble monument, in the form of a Greek tomb, bearing the following inscription : — TO THE MEMORY OF THE REV. SAMUEL NOBLE, MINISTER OF THE NEW JERUSALEM CHURCH, CROSS STREET, HATTON GARDEN, LONDON, AUTHOR OF "AN APPEAL TO THE REFLECTING OF ALL DENOMINATIONS," »' THE PLENARY INSPIRATION OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES ASSERTED," AND OTHER WORKS IN ELUCIDATION AND DEFENCE OF THE DOCTRINES OF THE NEW CHURCH, SIGNIFIED IN THE REVELATION, BY THE NEW JERUSALEM, AS EXPLAINED IN THE WRITINGS OF THE LORD'S SERVANT, EMANUEL SWEDENBORGr, THIS MONUMENT IS ERECTED BY HIS CONGREGATION AND OTHER FRIENDS, AS A TRIBUTE OF GRATEFUL AFFECTION FOR THE SPIRITUAL BENEFITS DERIVED FROM HIS FAITHFUL AND ABLE MINISTRY, AND FOR HIS OTHER LABOURS, IN THE CAUSE OF THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. DIED AUGUST 27TH, 1853, IN THE 75TH YEAR OF HIS AGB AND THE 34TH OF HIS MINISTRY. B xviii MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL NOBLE. On the other side of the monument is inscribed the epitaph in Latin, and on the end the citations from the Word and from the writings of Swedenborg. SUBTUS DEPOSITAE SUNT MORTALES EXUVIAE SAMUELIS NOBLE verbi divini ministp.i qui per xxxiii. annos doctrinam novae ecclesiae domini QUAE PER NOV AM HIEROSOLTMAM IN APOOALTPSI INTELLIGITUR E LIBRIS EMANUELIS SWEDENBORG DEPROMPTAM VITA EXORNAVIT VERBO ET OFFICIO COMMENDAVIT ET SCRIPTIS PRO VIRILI TUITUS EST VITAM HANCCE PRO AETERNA COMMUTAVIT A.D. VI KAL : SEPT : ANNI MDCCCLIII AETATIS SUAE LXXV. God is not the God of the dead but of the living. — Matt. xxii. 32. Spiritus hominis apparet in altera vita in forma humana, prorsas sicut in mundo;...est homo quoad omnia et singula, praeterquod non crasso illo corpore quo iu mundo, circumdatus sit ; id relinquit cum moritur, nec usquam resumit. Haec continuatio vitaeest, quae intelligitur per Resurrectionem. — Swedenborg. Be Nova Hierosohjma et ejus Doctrina Coelesti, No. 225, Lond. 1758. The spirit of man, (after death) appears in the other life in a human form altogether as in the world, ...he is a man in every respect except that he is not encompassed with that gross body which he had in the world ; this he leaves when he dies, — nor does he ever resume it. This continuation of life is meant by the Resurrection. — Swedenborg. Of the New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine, No. 225. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. — ♦ — The occasion and design of the following work are sufficiently explained in the Introductory Section ; it is therefore unneces- sary to say anything on those subjects here. In the former Edition, to save room, a large portion of the matter was thrown into the form of Notes ; and a further portion was printed in very small type as an Appendix. Con- siderable inconvenience, however, resulted from this arrange- ment ; and, when a new edition was called for, a very general wish was expressed that the Notes should be incorporated with the Text. This, therefore, with some exceptions, has now been done. If, however, the arrangement adopted in the first Edition had its inconveniences, it perhaps had its conveniences also. As remarked in the Preface to that Edition, those who prefer small books to large, especially on theological subjects, might by that arrangement, gratify their taste-, by confining their reading to the Text alone : if this should sufficiently interest them to raise a further appetite, they could then, if they pleased, read the Notes also. To retain, in the present Edition, an equivalent advantage, all the longer Sections have been sub- divided into distinct Pabts, each Part discussing some prin- cipal branch of the general subject of the Section. The whole work is thus divided into portions of moderate length, affording breaks at which the reader may conveniently pause. Readers, b 2 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. also, who would be alarmed at the idea of having to read so large a volume all through, may at first confine their perusal to those Parts, in the subjects of which, as expressed by their titles, they feel most interest ; and, if pleased with these, they can extend their reading further. But the Author hopes that none will conclude from the perusal of some Parts alone, that he has failed to establish his points ; since the subject and argu- gument of each Past of a Section usually receives light and confirmation from the rest ; and the Sections themselves, also, are similarly connected with each other. In the present Edition, as little as possible of the personal matter respecting the Rev. Mr. Beaumont, whose publication, intitled The Anti-Swedenhorg, originally occasioned the compo- sition of this work, has been retained. But the work being framed, as a principal object, to meet the common arguments and objections against the New Church, in the form in which those arguments and objections are stated in the Anti-Swe- denborg, it was neither possible, nor desirable, to divest it of the form it had thus assumed, and its objections are therefore retained : but only as a convenient formulary for objectors and objections in general. Beside the alteration of the form of this work in the present Edition by incorporating the Notes, large quantities of addi- tional matter have been introduced. The Sections, in parti- cular, on the Trinity, the Atonement, and the Christian Life, which, in the former Edition, to keep the whole within the pre- scribed limits, were greatly contracted, are now expanded to dimensions more in proportion to the other Sections, and less incommensurate with the importance of their subjects. Other large additions have also been interspersed throughout. By adopting a larger paper and a smaller type, nearly twice as much is contained in a page as in the text of the former edition; while the number of pages is nearly the same. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. Of the Appendix to the former Edition, there has only been retained the A rticle, No. I., Various particulars relating to a Mention of the Anti-Swedenborg Heaven and Hell, Sfc., Explained. The subjects of this Article are not suffi- ciently general to be introduced in the work itself; yet it will be found, on perusal, more completely to take away the ground of many common objections made against the writings of Swedenborg, and to evince that those writings contain no statements whatever which cannot be rationally vindicated. Most of the other portions of the former Appendix have been incorporated in the work itself. One additional Article has been introduced, on a charge often brought against the New Church, — that of Sabellianism. This would very properly have made a portion of the work itseli but the part in which it might have come in was completed before its introduction was thought of. The subject being important, the reader is requested not to overlook it where it stands. On the whole, this Appeal, in this Edition, has, as stated in the Title, been entirely re-modelled, and greatly enlarged ; it is hoped that it is proportionally improved. It has been brought out in compliance with a request of the Twenty-sixth General Conference of the New Church, a Resolution of which declares, "That this Conference is glad to have the opportunity afforded it of bearing testimony to the extensive uses that have been performed by the work in question, which has been fully proved, as stated at a former Conference, ' to afford valuable assistance to those who are desirous of vindicating their faith, and of opposing the influence of error and misrepre- sentation ; ' and is known to have been the means of intro- ducing many to an acceptance of the doctrines of the New Church, and of settling the minds of others who were wavering as to their reception." The Author is truly thankful that his work has thus been owned of Him, from whom all pure S.X11 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. Truth, and all that is really Good, proceeds ; and that it has also heen so favourahly accepted by his brethren. That the present Edition may be still further blessed in the same way, — may be instrumental in bringing many souls into, or of esta- blishing them in, the true way of eternal life, — and that many may feel cause to be thankful in eternity that they had been led to peruse it ; will be his continual prayer. CONTENTS. — ♦ — SECTION I. PAGE Introduction . ....... .... 1 SECTION II. The Second Coming of the Lord ....... 6 SECTION III. The Resurrection. Part I. — The true Doctrine Proposed, and Texts cited in Opposition considered .......... 33 Part II. — Other Texts, commonly regarded as adverse to the True Doctrine, considered ......... 53 Part III. — The Testimony of Reason, for, and against, the Resur- rection of the Material Body .... . . 69 Part IV.— Scripture Evidence of the True Doctrine . . . 88 SECTION IV. The Last Judgment. Part I. — The Last Judgment of the Scriptures was not to he accom- plished in the Natural World ...... 114 Part II. — The Spiritual World the scene of it; as of all former General Judgments ......... 133 Part III. — An intermediate World and State the Specif c Scene of all General and Particular Judgments . . . . .141 Part IV. — The Last Judgment actually accomplished . . . 1G1 SECTION V. A Human Instrument necessary, and therefore raised up. Part I. — Swedenborg qualified to be such an Instrument, and not unlikely to he chosen . . . . . . . .178 Part II. — Specific Evidences to the Qualifications of Swedenborg, and to the Truth of his Claims 185 Part III. — The Objection, That Swedenborg performed no Miracles, considered .......... 215 Part IV. — The Charge against Swedenborg of Mental Derangement, considered, with some Minor Objections . . ... 236 SECTION VI. Heaven and Hell ; and the appearances in them, and in the Intermediate Region, or World of Spirits. Tart I. — The Human Instrument for opening the Truths to he re- vealed at the Lord's Second Advent, should be enabled to remove the prevailing Darkness or. these Subjects .... 275 xxiv CONTENTS. PAGE Part II. — The Inhabitants of Heaven and of Hell are all from the Human Race . 279 Part III. — All Swedenborg's Statements respecting the Spiritual World are perfectly Reasonable and Scriptuial, when certain Truths, relating to that World, are known . . . . . .297 Part IV. — The Existence of the Marriage-Union in Heaven, and of an Opposite Connexion in Hell 306 Part V. — Other Circumstances in Heaven, Hell, and the World of Spirits, differing from what is usually conceived . . . 325 Part VI. — Swedenborg's General Views respecting Heaven and Hell, obviously agreeable to Reason and Scripture . . . . 341 SECTION VII. The Trinity, as centered in the Person op the Lord Jesus Christ. Part L — The General Doctrine stated, and established by Scripture Part II. — All Objections to the Doctrine fall to the ground, when certain Truths are known relating to the Lord as the Son of God, and the Glorification of his Humanity ..... Part III. — Tritheism the Alternative of the True Doctrine of the Trinity Part IV. — The Tine Doctrine confirmed from the Texts most relied on for the proof of the contrary ...... SECTION VIII. The Atonement, Sacrifice, and Mediation, op Jesus Christ. Part I. — Atonement in General, and Atonement by Sacrifices, especially by the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ . . . . . Part II. — Other Modes of Atonement, beside that by Sacrifices, mentioned in Scripture ........ Part III.— The Mediation of Jesus Christ SECTION IX. The Christian Life. Part I. — The New Church Doctrine of Life, a Doctrine of Genuine Holiness . . . . . . . . . 457 Pail; II. — Holiness, not Laxity, encouraged by the sentiment, That it is not so difficult to live the Life that leads to Heaven as some suppose ........... 466 Part III. — Charity not infringed by Swedenborg's Exposure of the Errors of a Perverted Church .476 APPENDIX. No. I. — Sect. VI.— Part V. Various Particulars relating to Heaven and Hell, &c, Explained 4S3 No. II.— Sect. VII.— Part IV. The New Church Doctrine of the Trinity not a Revival of Sabel iianisin, or any other Ancient Heresy . . . COS 352 365 377 393 418 437 445 AN APPEAL, &0. TO THE REFLECTING OE ALL DENOMINATIONS SECTION I. INTRODUCTION. » Men and Bketheen! Allow me, with respect and affection, to address you, as persons who assign their due value to serious things, on a subject of, as it appears to many, no inconsiderable importance. The existence of a body of Christians who humbly trust that thev belong to the New Church of the Lord, predicted in various parts of the Holy Scriptures, and called, in the twenty-first chapter of the Revelation, the New Jerusalem, has, for some time past, attracted a considerable degree of public attention. It is generally known that the Views of the Eternal World and State, and the Doctrines of Faith and Life, held by these persons, are those which are delivered, as deductions from the Word of God, in the Writings of the Hon. Emanuel Swedenborg ; who is by them regarded as a distinguished servant of the Lord, raised up for this work by as express an inter- ference of Divine Providence, as that by which a Luther was raised to effect the Reformation from the corruptions of the Church of Rome, or even as that by which a Paul was called forth to teach the great truths of Christianity itself, or a John the Baptist to announce the first advent of its Divine Author. But while it has thus been known that such a body of Christians exists, and that such is the origin of their views and doctrines, the greatest misapprehension in general prevails as to what those views and doctrines are, and the grounds on which they are embraced : for, unhappily, they have been heard of by the public at large, only, for the most part, through the misrepre- sentations and perversions of adversaries. We, who have embraced 2 INTRODUCTION. them, feel an entire but humble assurance, that, were they seen in their true colours, all the Reflecting, of all Denominations, would immediately admit, that they are worthy at least of deep consideration and serious attention ; and we are assured further, that, were such consideration and attention bestowed on them, numbers would rise from the investigation with a conviction of their truth. If they are true, to have just or erroneous conceptions of them cannot be a matter of indifference : permit, then, one of those who have not hesitated to stake their salvation upon their certainty, to address a serious Appeal to you in their behalf. Great activity has been used, through a great variety of channels, to possess your minds with totally false and extremely injurious conceptions respecting the illustrious Swedenborg and his writings : allow, therefore, I intreat you, one who has maturely considered both, to disabuse you respecting them, — to disperse, by a fair statement, the clouds of misrepresentation in which the sentiments received by us have been involved, — and to bring to your acquaintance views of Divine Truth, which appear to us to be at once elevated and well-founded ; views which, we venture to assure you, challenge the strictest scrutiny of Eeason, and come supported by the plainest testimony of Scripture. Yes, ye who prize the inestimable gift of Eeason ! permit me to say, that never was a more gross deception practised on mankind, than when it has been attempted, by idle tales and false imputations, to make you believe, that Reason, and what is commonly, but improperly, termed Sweden- borgianism, are uncombinable terms. And to you, ye sincere lovers of the Scriptures ! allow me to declare, that to persuade you that writings and doctrines like those we espouse, which place the truths of Scripture in their own genuine light, are at variance with the truths of Scripture, and that they originate in delusion, is to impose on you an extravagant delusion indeed. Were I left to my own choice in regard to the form which this Appeal should assume, it would be different from that which I am compelled by circumstances to adopt, Having a rich store from which to make my selection of the most luminous truths and most satisfactory doctrines, upon every subject that is interesting to a man, to an immortal, to a Christian, I naturally should give to the most important things the largest share of attention, bestowing a more cursory notice on matters of inferior moment. There are no sentiments entertained by us, or advanced in the writings of Swedenborg, which we are not satisfied are pure and genuine truths ; but in every extended system of doctrine there are truths of higher and of lower importance ; as in the system of the visible heavens "one star differeth from another star in glory ; " and as the representative breast-plate of Aaron not only included the ruby and the diamond, but also the agate and the jasper. In making, then, an Appeal to you in behalf of our views, INTKODUCTION. 3 were I left to pursue the most natural course, T undoubtedly should place the richer gems, the rubies and the diamonds, in the more prominent light, and give to the inferior a subordinate station. The great truths respecting the Nature, Person, and Attributes, of the Lord God Almighty ; the work of Human Redemption ; the duties of Repentance and Reformation ; the process of Regeneration ; the entire Inspiration and exalted Spirituality of the Word of God ; the certainty of a Future Retribution ; the true Importance of the Present Stage of Existence as that in which man makes up the form and character of his spirit and internal life, and thus fixes his state, either for happi- ness or misery, to eternity ; the pure Glories of Heaven and the real Terrors of Hell ; the Wonders of the Divine Government or of Divine Providence, which extends to the minutest occurrences of human life, and in all that it either appoints or permits, primarily regards eternal ends: — these, and such as these, are the subjects which occupy the distinguished stations in the doctrines which we believe to be those of the New Jerusalem, and in the writings in which those doctrines are delivered : on these they present views which are indisputably heavenly and exalted : on these then the pen of an Apologist would naturally dwell at the greatest length and with the most delight, secure that in all which he should offer respecting them the mind of the unprejudiced reader could scarcely fail of finding the most decided satisfaction. But they who have set themselves to crush, if it were possible, the rising New Church in its infancy, — as Herod sent to slay all the children in Bethlehem of two years old and under, — ■ naturally take the opposite course. Some of them, indeed, as the late Dr. Priestley and a few others, have undertaken to oppose the leading doctrines of our church by argument ; but the greater number have endeavoured to keep our real doctrines, as far as possible, out of sight, offering, and then combating, such a garbled statement of them, as can give their readers no just idea of what they are ; while they have ransacked the pages of our valued Author in quest of every thing which, on being brought forward by itself, separated from its context, and from the explanations necessary to its right apprehension, might appear most repugnant to the ideas commonly entertained of religious truth, and might with most plausibility be made the ground of oppro- brious animadversion ; especially when heightened by exaggeration and misstatement, which have often been supplied accordingly ; not to mention the many absolute fictions, void of all foundation either in truth or in probability, which have been propagated respecting Swedenborg, his writings, and their admirers. In appealing to you, then, in behalf of our sentiments, it is necessary to follow the course marked out by our opponents ; and as they have endeavoured to raise prejudices by chiefly dwelling upon parts of our author's system and writings which are of very interior importance, I shall be obliged to 4 INTRODUCTION. give to such subordinate points, a much larger proportion of attention than they otherwise would demand. I shall take, then, for my guide, as to the subjects necessary to be discussed and to be set in their true light, a publication by the Rev. G. Beaumont, of Norwich, which he denominates " The Anti-Swedenborg ; or, a Declaration of the Prin- cipal Errors and Anti- Scriptural Doctrines contained in the Theo- logical Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg." My chief reasons for giving my Appeal a particular reference to this publication, are, first, because it is a tolerably complete condensation of all the topics of objection ever raised against our views and doctrines ; and secondly, because this work has been the occasion of many misrepresentations of our sentiments and of ourselves in the theological Eeviews and Magazines, the editors of several of which, taking it for granted that Mr. Beaumont's reports and views are correct, have recommended his ■work, have repeated his statements, and thus have given a wide circulation to the injurious impression he has laboured to excite. As observed above, had I chosen my own ground in this Appeal, the form of it wrould have been different from that which, under the existing circumstances, it will assume : but the advocates of the New Church, though without any confidence in themselves, are at all times ■willing, conscious of the invulnerability, in every point, of their sacred cause, to leave the choice of the ground to their opponents, and to meet them in any line of attack they may think proper to adopt. To legitimate argument (though it is seldom, alas ! that any thing of that kind is employed against us), we hope to be enabled to oppose legitimate argument from sounder premises ; to misrepresentations of facts or sentiments, the statement of such facts or sentiments in their proper colours ; to misapplications of Scripture, Scripture justly applied and fairly explained ; and to the artifices of falsehood, the honesty of truth. But we will not return railing for railing ; nor, because the most scandalous imputations have been fabricated to be affixed on us, will we retort with anything of the kind against our accusers. We commit the whole cause, with perfect composure as to the issue, into the hands of Hm whose cause we believe it to be ; and while we are grateful that we have been enabled to behold the truth, on subjects of the deepest importance to human welfare, in, as ■we are satisfied, its own genuine light, we will not be offended with those who as yet see differently, nor cherish the smallest spark of per- sonal ill-feeling towards the bitterest of our opponents. They, as well as we, are in the hands of a merciful God, who, as our doctrines assure us, does not visit with severity for involuntary, much less for well- intentioned error : and though we cannot but believe that our adver- saries, especially when they misrepresent and malign us, are in error, we strive to cherish the hope, in every case where there is any possible ground for it, that the error is involuntary and well-intentioned. INTRODUCTION. 5 Beside occasional notices of other assailants, I intend then in the following pages, for the reasons stated above, to answer all the objections raised in the work above mentioned. I do not propose, however, to follow the author's steps in a servile or captious manner, or to keep him or his objections constantly before the reader. My design rather is, to take occasion, from his strictures, to open, upon general principles, the subjects brought under discussion ; so that this appeal may include a general exposition of the sentiments of the New Church upon the most important of her doctrines, and especially upon those subjects, even when of quite inferior moment in them- selves, in regard to which the most common and plausible objections have been raised, and the most injurious misconceptions have gone abroad. I entreat you, then, my serious friends, to whatever denomination, as regards the profession of religion, you may belong, to enter on the perusal of this Appeal with candid minds, and with a sincere desire to see the truth, wheresoever, and with whomsoever, it may be found. As the best preparation for thus seeing it, allow me to request you to raise your hearts, in prayer for right direction and illumination, to the Truth Itself Impersonated, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are assured in his unerring Word, that He is "the true Light which lighteth every man, that cometh into the world ; " * He declares, himself, that He is " the Truth," f and again, that He is " the Light of the world," and that "he that followeth Him shall not abide in darkness, but shall have the light of life : " I whatsoever then may be your present opinions in regard to his nature and person, you cannot doubt, if you believe the Scriptures, that he has the power of imparting the light of truth to the mind that looks to him for it. Nor can you doubt, that, to the reception of any gift from him, faith in his power to confer it is a necessary preliminary. When the two blind men intreated his mercy, while on earth, He said unto them, " Believe ye that I am able to do this ? " and on their answering in the affirmative, " then touched He their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you. And," the sacred record adds, " their eyes were opened." § Who does not see the correspondence between the communication of the light of day to the eye and of the light of truth to the mind ? and that the one miracle was performed to represent the other ? Whatever then may be thought of the Lord Jesus Christ, evident it is that He is set forth to us in the Scriptures as the Being from whom the inestimable gift of the perception of divine truth is to be received ; and that, in order to its reception, He is to be applied to with confidence in his power to bestow it. Be your ideas of Him then, in other respects, what they may, permit me to beg of you to • John, i. 9. + Ch. xiv. 6. + Ch. viii. 12. § Matt. ix. 28, 29, 30. 6 SECOXD C01IIXG OF THE LORD, believe, that He really has this power ; to elevate your hearts towards Him with corresponding desires ; and in this frame of mind to weigh the statements and considerations, which, in the following Sections of this Appeal, will be laid before you. Under this guidance, I cannot refrain from hoping, that you will be led to the conclusion, that what our opponents call ' ' principal errors " are in reality momentous truths, and that what they denominate " anti- scriptural doctrines" are in fact the very doctrines of the Scriptures. But do not let the fear of being brought to this result, by the devout experiment which I have presumed to recommend, deter you from making it: do not refuse to put your minds, on this occasion, under the sole guidance of the Lord Jesus Christ, from an apprehension, that He who is the Light and the Tkuth, may by any possibility, guide you into error. SECTION II. THE SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. I will call your attention, my reflecting brethren, in the first place, to the important circumstance announced to us in the pro- phetic parts of the New Testament, and commonly known by the name of the Second Coming of the Lord ; with the important con- sequence of such coming, or rather part of it, which is described in symbolic language as the descent from heaven of a New Jerusalem. Lor it is because we understand these great predictions in a different sense from that in which most persons at the present time apprehend them, and because we believe that, in their only true sense, they are at this day receiving their fulfilment, that so many attempts are made to hold up both us and our sentiments to derision. In this respect we are treated just as were the first converts to Christianity by the Jews. The Jews were looking for the coming of the Messiah, as the hope of Israel ; yet were they almost unanimous in persecuting the small band of their brethren, who affirmed that their hope was fulfilled. Christians have ever been looking with hope for the second coming of Him whom the Jews rejected: yet are too many of them eager in the persecution of those, who affirm that this hope also is fulfilled. To our case then may be most exactly applied the noble apology of Taul when pleading before Agrippa. " I stand," says he, " and am judged, for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers : unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come. For which hope's sake, king Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews." * * Acts, xxvi. 6, 7. SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 7 I propose then, in this Section of my Appeal, to undertake the defence of those who stand in the same situation among their brethren, the professors of Christianity, as the Apostle Paul and the other first Christians did among their brethren, the professors of Judaism : and I earnestly entreat you, as believers of the Scriptures, — as holders of the Christian's hope, candidly to consider what I have to offer. There is nothing in the sentiments I shall present which ought to offend any one, but, on the contrary, much that every one may regard with delight. If by any means prejudices have been instilled into the minds of any of you, permit me to request you to lay them aside till you have fairly heard both sides of the question ; and pray do not consider me as your enemy, because, with much respect and affection, and without intending the smallest offence to any one, I lay before you what, from the bottom of my soul, I believe to be the truth. First, then, I propose to show, That the second coming of the Lord is not a coming in person (as most persons, in consequence of taking quite literally the symbolic language of prophecy, have hitherto supposed), but that it means the restoration of the true knowledge of divine subjects, or of the genuine doctrines of the Word of God, accompanied icith their corresponding influence on the heart ; in other words, that it is the revival of the true church of the Lord among mankind ; in which mode of considering it, it is more par- ticularly meant by the manifestation of the New Jerusalem. In the second place I will show, That there are many circumstances and signs in the situation of the world at this dag, which plainly indicate that the time for the divine interference described in Scripture as the second coming of the Lord has arrived. In the third place I will point out, That there are circumstances in the state of the world at this day in regard to religion, which evince, that the restoration of true religion, promised under the figures of a second coming of the Lord and establishment of a New Jerusalem, cannot be much longer delayed, without the most serious injury to the best interests of the human race. And I will conclude with showing, That there is nothing in our views of this subject which can be justly charged with enthusiasm, but that, on the contrary, th-:y furnish the best antidote to every species of fanaticism and spiritual delusion. I. With regard to the first of these subjects then, it is first to be observed, that nothing is more true than a remark which has been made by almost every commentator that ever wrote upon the fulfilment of prophecy ; namely, That the exact meaning of the prophecies is never understood, till the time of their accomplishment. This was strikingly experienced in regard to the prophecies which announced the coming of the Lord in the flesh. Although the whole Jewish nation knew from those prophecies that a Messiah was to appear, and the more learned among them could even point out truly where he would be s SECOND COMIXG OF THE LORD. born, they were so much in the dark respecting every thing else that concerned him, looking only for a carnal and not a spiritual Saviour, that, when he did come, they rejected him and put him to death. And even the disciples who received him, — even the twelve Apostles whom he peculiarly selected, — so much partook of the common errors of their countrymen, that they disputed which of them should be the greatest, or have the highest post, in the temporal kingdom which they supposed he was about to set up.* Even at the moment of his ascension, they asked bim whether he would not restore the temporal kingdom of Israel ; t and it was not till they had received the gift of the Holy Spirit from their glorified Lord, that they had just ideas of the nature of that kingdom into which they had been admitted them- selves, and which they were to preach to others. Another remark of importance is also here necessary to be made ; it is, That even when the Apostles had received the gift of the Holy Spirit, it did not communicate to them, at once, all the truths of the Christian dispensation. Thus they remained for a long time in the persuasion, that the gospel was to be preached only to the Jews. It was not till seven or eight years after the Lord's ascension, that Peter was convinced that it was allowable to communicate it to the Gentiles : it then required a vision and special revelation to induce him to do it ; J and he was strictly questioned upon it afterwards by his brethren. § It was not till ten years after this that they came to the conclusion, that the Gentile converts were not required to keep the law of Moses ; || and they do not appear ever to have clearly seen, that the Jews themselves were exempted by the gospel from the observance of that law. If then it was only by degrees, and as occasion required, that the truths which were essential to the full knowledge of the Christian system were revealed even to the Apostles, and that they were enabled to understand the precepts and prophecies of the Old Testament as they applied to the doctrines and circumstances of Christianity, it is no wonder if it be found to be true, in the third place, That the p>ro- phecies of the Lord himself, and of the Kew-Testament-prophets, relating to his second coming at a future period then very distant, and to his revival, at such second coming, of pure Christianity, after it had suffered decline and perversion, were at that time hidden from the Church. Accordingly, it is certain that the early Christians were so much mistaken respecting the purport of these prophecies, that they all expected that the second coming of the Lord was then immediately to take place ; and even the Apostles appear to have supposed that they might live to see it. They knew that the Lord's coming was to be preceded by a corruption of his religion; and * Mark, x. 35—45. t Acts, i. 6. J Ch. x. § Ck xi. 2, 3. || CL xv. SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 9 because they saw corrupters of it even then appear, they concluded that the last time was then arrived. Thus the Apostle John writes, " Little children, it is the last time ; and as ye have heard that anti- christ shall come, even now there are many anti-christs ; whereby we know that it is the last time." * So Peter exhorts those to whom he writes, not to be disheartened by the seeming tardiness of the arrival of the expected day, telling them, "that scoffers should come in the last days, saying, where is the promise of his coming ? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." f But that even this Apostle supposed, that the expected coming, attended with a literal fulfilment of the prophecies which seem to speak of the passing away of heaven and earth, would happen during the life of persons then living, is evident from his exhorting them thus: "Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conver- sation and godliness, looking for, and hasting unto, the coming of the day of God." % James speaks of it as near with equal confidence : he says, "Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and the latter rain : be ye also patient ; stablish your hearts ; for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. — Behold the Judge standeth at the door." § As for the Apostle Paul, he speaks on the subject to the Thessalonians, as if both himself and they, or at least some of them, would certainly live to witness it: he says, " WE which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them that sleep ; " and again : " Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air : " || which so disturbed those to whom the Apostle wrote, that he found it necessary, in a second epistle, to desire them " not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as though the day of Christ were at hand" (by which he means, were immediately to take place), because there must come " a falling awayfirst, and that man of sin be revealed," f — in which he refers to a prophecy of Daniel: nevertheless he declares, that " the mystery of iniquity doth already work " * * and thus still intimates that the expected coming of the Lord was by no means very distant. Accordingly, as the nature of the second coming of the Lord was not in that day openly revealed ; just as the nature of his first coming had not previously been openly discovered to the Jews ; the Apostles never offer any explication of it, as they do of other prophetic declarations which then had their accomplishment, but * 1 John, ii. 18. + 2 Ep. iii. 3, 4. % 2 Ep. iii. 11, 12. § Ep. v. 7, 8, 9. || 1 Thes. iv. 15, 17. II 2 Thess. ii. 2, 3. ** Ver. 7. 10 SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. always speak of it in the same symbolic language as had been used respecting it by the Lord himself and by the ancient prophets. This language has in consequence been understood according to the literal sense only, by Christians in general, from that time to this: and thus, from age to age, mankind have lived in the expectation of beholding the Lord appear in the clouds of the firma- ment, and of being themselves caught up to meet him at his coming in the air. This fact, that neither the time nor the nature of the Lord's second coming was explicitly revealed to the primitive Christian Church, nor even to the Apostles themselves, is of so great importance, that, though I think it conclusively established by what has been already advanced, yet, as strong prejudices prevail on this subject, it shall be further confirmed by unquestionable testimony. Let me, then, remind the reflecting, that while the Lord Jesus Christ himself often speaks, in the gospels, of his second coming, he at times so expresses himself, that they who understand his words literally must suppose him to mean, that his coming to judgment was not to be protracted beyond the age in which he delivered the predictions. Thus one of the most full and explicit of his prophetic declarations is that in Matt. xxiv. — " Immediately after the tribula- tion of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken : And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven : and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn ; and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Now learn a parable of the fig tree ; When his branch is yet tender and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh : so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily, I say unto you, This generation shall not jiass, till all these things be fulfilled" (Ver. 29 — 34). Now all the Apostles, except Paul, heard this or other similar prophecies delivered, and Paul, it is certain, had a knowledge of the circumstances of the Lord's life and discourses on earth communicated to him by revelation; * accordingly, these pre- dictions were the foundation of the knowledge possessed by the Apostles respecting the Lord's second coming, and all that is said on that subject in their writings consists of applications of these predictions, with some of a similar land in the Old Testament. Thus the celebrated passage in 1 Thess. iv. 15 to 17, from which an extract is given above, is simply a paraphrase of the Lord's words just cited, which had been * Gal. i. 16, 17. SECOND COMING OP THE LORD. 11 miraculously made known to the Apostle, whence he justly introduces it with stating, "This we say unto you by the word of the Lord." Consequently, if the true meaning of the symbolic language in which the Lord delivered his predictions was not, with the predictions themselves, made known to the Apostles (and of this their writings afford no trace whatever), they would naturally expect, as it is certain all other Chris- tians did, who could only have taken their ideas from the teaching of the Apostles, that those prophetic announcements were to be literally fulfilled ; whereas, that their literal sense is not their true sense, is evinced by the fact, that they have remained unaccomplished for seventeen hundred years beyond the period, at which, according to that sense, their accomplishment should have taken place. Since the preceding remarks were first written, I have been much pleased at meeting with the same arguments strongly urged by so judicious and highly esteemed a writer as Dr. Watts : the only dif- ference between us in regard to this question is, that he supposes the Apostles to have known the truth of the matter, but purposely to have concealed it. So long as it is acknowledged that what they have said upon the subject is not the naked truth, it makes little difference to the main argument, whether they withheld the naked truth through ignorance or design, and I willingly leave the reader to adopt which alternative he pleases. The passage alluded to of Dr. "Watts, is in his " Essay towards the proof of a Separate State of Soids," prefixed to his " "World to Come ; " and is as follows : "As the patriarchs and the Jews of old, after the Messiah was promised, were constantly expect- ing his first coming almost in every generation, till he did appear, and many modes of prophetical expression in Scripture, which speak of things long to come as though they were present, or just at hand, gave them some occasion for this expectation ; so the Christians of the first age did generally expect the second coming of Christ to judgment, and the resurrection of the dead, in that very age wherein it was fore- told. St. Paul gives us a hint of it in 2 Thess. ii. 1, 2. They sup- posed the day of the Lord was just appearing. And many expressions of Christ concerning his return, or coming again after his departure, seem to represent his absence as a thing of no long continuance. It is true these words of his may partly refer to his coming to destroy Jerusalem, and the coming in of his kingdom among the Gentiles ; or his coming by his messenger of death ; yet they generally, in their supreme or final sense, point to his coming to raise the dead, and judge the world. And from the words of Christ, also, concerning John, ' If I will that he tarry till I come' (John xxi. 22), it is pro- bable that the Apostles themselves at first, as well as other Christians, might derive this apprehension of his speedy coming. "It is certain (Dr. W. proceeds) that when Christ speaks of his coming in general, and promiscuous, and parabolical terms, whether c 2 12 SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. with regard to the destruction of Jerusalem or the judgment of the world, he saith, ' Yerily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass till all these things he fulfilled' (Matt. xxiv. 34). And the Apostles frequently told the world, the coming of the Lord was near : ' The Lord is at hand,'1 (Phil. iv. 5) : ' Exhorting one another — so much the more, as you see the day approaching' (Heh. x. 25): and that this is the day of the coming of Christ, verse 37 assures us ; ' For yet a little while, he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.'' ' Now it is high time to awake out of sleep : the night is far spent ; the day is at hand' (Rom. xiii. 12). ' To him who is ready to judge the puick and the dead ' (1 Pet. iv. 5). ' The end of all things is at hand' (ver. 7). ' The coming of the Lord draweth nigh ; Behold, the judge standeth at the door ' (James v. 8, 9). ' Seal not up the pro- phecy of this hook, for the time is at hand' (Rev. xxii. 10): 'And behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give to every man as his work shall be ' (ver. 12). And the sacred volume is closed with this assurance, ' Surely I come quickly: ' and the echo and expec- tation of the Apostle, or the church, ' Amen ! even so, come Lord Jesus.' " It is granted (our author goes on) that in prophetical expressions, such as all these are, some obscurity is allowed : and it may be doubt- ful, perhaps, whether some of them may refer to Christ's coming by the destruction of Jerusalem, or his coming to call particular persons away by his messenger of death, or his appearance at the last judg- ment. It is granted, also, that it belongs to prophetical language to set things far distant, as it were before our eyes, and make them seem present, or very near at hand. But still these expressions had plainly such an influence on the primitive Christians, as that they imagined the day of resurrection and judgment was very near. — And though they [the Apostles] never asserted that Christ would come to raise the dead and judge the world in that age, yet when they knew themselves that he would not come so soon, they might not think it necessary to give every Christian, or every Church, an immediate account of the more distant time of this great event, that the uncertainty of it might keep them ever watchful ; and even when St. Paul informs the Thes- salonians, that the day of the Lord was not so very near as they imagined it, (2 Thes. ii. 2,) yet he does not put it off beyond that cen- tury by any express language." Now has not Dr. "Watts here fully proved, that, whether or not the Apostles themselves knew that the Lord's second coming was not to take place in that age, they often spoke of it in such terms as conveyed the immediate expectation of it to the minds of the primitive Chris- tians ? But what this popular writer says respecting the allowed obscurity of prophetical expressions, though true in itself, is not here strictly applicable. For the passages which he cites from the Epistles are none of them original prophecies ; thus, properly speaking, they SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 13 are not prophecies at all : this character only belongs to the single passage he has quoted from Matthew, and to those from the Revela- tion ; the others, being only repetitions by the Apostles, in their own language, of declarations made by the Lord Jesus Christ when on earth, are not prophecies, any more than the repetition by any teacher, in his own language, of a prophetic declaration, is a prophecy. Some of the original prophetical expressions are indeed retained ; but when these are repeated at second hand, without explanation, every hearer supposes that he who repeats them means them to be literally under- stood. As then the Apostles did thus repeat them, and it thus is certain that they meant their hearers or readers to understand them according to the literal expression, it becomes next to impossible to suppose, that they themselves understood them any otherwise : and if so, it is a certain fact, that the true meaning of the prophecies respect- ing the second coming of the Lord was entirely hidden from the Church founded at his first coming, even from the Apostles themselves; just as the true meaning of the prophecies relating to his first coming has been hidden from the Jews, and even from the prophets by whom they were delivered. To be quite certain, however, that this is not merely a probable surmise, I have examined all the passages in the writings of the Apostles in which any reference is made to a future coming of the Lord ; and I earnestly advise all the Candid and Reflecting to do the same. Some of the texts, I find, might be equally suited to the con- text, whether that event were meant to be represented as near or distant ; but in many of them the introduction of the subject is desti- tute of all force, and even of applicability upon any other supposition, than that the writer understood the event as near ; and whilst, as has already been seen, there are many passages which expressly affirm it to be near at hand in the age of the Apostles, there is not one which speaks of it as being then distant, or which affords an inference that it was regarded as distant by the writer.* * To give every reader an opportunity of easily ascertaining this for himself, I here add all the texts I have been able to find in which any mention of it is made by the Apostles, only omitting those decisive ones which have been cited already. (I have marked by Italic characters the expressions which would particularly lead the first readers to expect the great event in their own life-time). Paul exhorts the Corinthians of that day to be "waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall also confirm you unto the end, [compare Matt. xxiv. 13,] that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ" [1 Cor. i. 7, 8]. "For we write none other things unto you than what ye read or acknowledge ; and I trust ye shall acknowledge even, to the end; as also ye have acknowledged us in part, that we are your rejoicing, even as ye also are ours, in the day of the Lord Jesus" [2 Cor. i. 13, 14]. " Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption!'' (Ep. iv. 30 : compare Luke xxi. 28]. " He which hath begun a good work in you, will -perform it [or carry it on] until the day of Jesus Christ" [Phil. i. 6]. "And this I pray, — that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day 14 SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. Now let any one who had read the texts cited below, transfer him- self in thought to the age in which such declarations were written, of Clvist" [Ver. 9, 10]. " Our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Christ" [Ch. iii. 20]. "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory" [Col. iii. 4]. " Ye turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven,'" [1 Thes. i. 9, 10]. "What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing ? are not even ye, in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, at his coming X " [Ch. ii. 19]. "The Lord make you to increase and abound in love, &c. — to the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, with all his saints" [Ch. iii. 12, 13]. "Ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should over- tale you as a thief" [Ch. v. 4]. "I pray God your whole spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" [Ver. 23]. "Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you, and to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels," kc. [2 Thes. i. 6, 7]. "The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ" [Ch. iii. 5]. "I give thee charge — that thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ" [1 Tim. vi. 14]. "I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day" [2 Tim. i. 12]. "The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day" [Ver. 18]. " This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come : for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blas- phemers, disobedient to parents, 'unthankful, unholy, &c. — from such turn away" [Ch. iii. 1 — 5 ; where, note, that the words being addressed to Timothy personally, imply that he should live to see those last days], " I charge thee before God aud the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom" [Ch. iv. 1]. ' ' Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day ; and not to me only, but to all them that love his appearing" [Ver. 8]. " Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him he shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation " [Heb. ix. 28]. "Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time ; wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith, being more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ" [1 Peter, i. 5, 6, 7]. "Wherefore — hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ" [Ver. 13]. "When the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away" [Ch. v. 4]. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be ; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" [1 John, iii. 2]. " For there are certain men crept in unawares, &c- — And Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, &c. — These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts, &c. — But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ ; how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. — Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy ; to the only wise God our Saviour," &c. [Jude, ver. 4, 14—13, 24, 25]. SECOND COMING OF THE 10 ED. 15 and then judge whether he would not have concluded, from the pas- sages collected, in conjunction with those cited by Dr. Watts and in our previous observations, that they who thus spoke continually of the day of the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ, who declared that it was to take place in the last days or times, and who affirmed that the last days or times were then begun, meant to affirm, that the appearing of the Lord was in that age to take place, and to be wit- nessed by some then living. The event has proved that the expectation was erroneous ; yet not one expression occurs which could tend to correct the mistake. Accordingly, it is universally allowed that such was the opinion entertained on the subject by the first Christians ; and it is equally certain, that the first Christians could have no opinion on the subject but what they derived from the first teachers of Chris- tianity, the Apostles. Yet most of the Commentators, unwilling to admit that any mystery whatever was kept hidden from the Apostles, have supposed with Dr. Watts, that notwithstanding they always spoke as if the second coming of Jie Lord was to be expected in that age, they well knew to the contrary. Thus, for example, the pious Doddridge, in his note on the words of Paul (1 Thes. iv. 15), " We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord," — notwithstanding he translates the original, still more strongly, " we who remain alive at the coming of the Lord" — appears much displeased with those who conclude, from the plain sense of the words, that the Apostle himself expected to be one of those who should then " remain alive." He begins his note with this statement : " This hath been interpreted by many, as an intimation, that the apostle expected to be found alive at the day of judgment : and, on that interpretation, some have urged it as an instance of his entertaining, at least for a while, mistaken notions on that head, as if the day of the Lord were nearly approaching : " to this Dr. D. objects, that " this is contrary to his own explication of the matter, 2 Thes. ii. 1, &c." — though, as Dr. Watts remarks, when the Apostle there " informs the Thessalonians that the day of the Lord was not so very near as they imagined it, he does not put it oif beyond that century by any express language." Dr. Doddridge has only to object further, that it is contrary "to other passages in which he expresses his own expectation of death ; " but this only proves, that when he says " WE who remain alive," he does not mean to affirm positively that he should be one who should thus remain, but only that he thought it not impossible. Had he meant to affirm that the coming of the Lord would take place in that age, but certainly not till after his own death, he would not have said, " we who remain alive," but "you who remain alive:" but had he meant to exclude all that generation from the possibility of witnessing the event, he would neither have said "we," nor " you, who remain alive ," but 16 SECOXD COILING OF THE LORD. "they 'who shall he alive." It seems the more extraordinary that the worthy Expositor should here attempt to clear the Apostle from the imputation of imperfect knowledge, and by such weak arguments, when he had just before admitted a lower degree of the charge to be probably true ; for in his note on verse 13, after quoting the remark of Saurin, that the Apostle "did not then exactly know whether Christ's appearance would be in that age, or at some much more remote distance of time," he very judiciously observes, "And this ignorance was certainly consistent with the knowledge of all that was necessary to the preaching of the Gospel ;" referring to Mark xiii. 32. But surely, the supposition that the Apostles knew that the Lord's coming would not take place in that age, and yet spoke so as natu- rally to beget that belief in their readers, lays them open to much worse imputations than follow from that of mere ignorance or mistake. Thus, as Doddridge himself notices, the Jew Orobio affirms, that Paul expressed himself as he did to the Thessalonians through artifice, to serve a present purpose, holding out the expectation of being taken up alive into heaven in a very little time, as a bait to invite people to Christianity. So the author of a deistical publication, insidiously denominated " Not Paul but Jesus," * draws one of his reasons for regarding that Apostle as a self-interested impostor, from this occur- rence, which be describes as a bait of another order. According to the representation of this subtle writer, Paul wished to produce a persuasion that the end of all things was at hand, to render people indifferent to their worldly property, in order that they might be more ready to give him a good share of it ; but the measures he took for this purpose with the Thessalonians operated so much more strongly than he intended, that many were thrown into such a panic as to neglect all business entirely (which, the objector urges, is stated in 2 Thes. iii. 11) ; wherefore he found it necessary, in a second Epistle, (ch. ii. i, &c.) to put the expected end of all things a little further off, and to endeavour to allay, in some measure, the terrors he had raised. Is there then any view of this affair which will clear the Apostles from the imputation either of disgraceful ignorance or of wilful mis- representation, and thus will at once take away the ground of the cavils of Jewish and infidel objectors, and obviate the necessity for such weak excuses as are usually resorted to by Christian defenders ? Do we not obtain such a view, when we see that, while every thing relating to the doctrines of the primitive Christian Church, and to the interpretation of the prophecies of the Old Testament relating to the Lord's first advent, was clearly revealed to the Apostles, after having * This work was published under the name of " Gamaliel Smith," but the real author was the celebrated Jeremy Bentham. 6EC0ND COMING OF THE LOUD. 17 been kept hidden till the time of their accomplishment had come, the prophecies of the New Testament relating to his second advent were in like manner kept hidden till the time for their fulfilment should arrive ? Does not this evince, that ignorance upon this single subject, — the time and manner of the fulfilment of the prophecies of the New Tes- tament,— no more forms a flaw in the character of the Apostles, than ignorance respecting the time and manner of the Lord's first coming constitutes a blemish in the character of the Jewish patriarchs and worthies ? The two advents of the Lord belong to two different dis- pensations : according to the order always observed in the Divine Economy, the things peculiar to a later dispensation are never openly revealed under a former : consequently, It would have been inconsistent with the order always observed in the Divine Economy , had the Apostles, whose province it icas to proclaim the Lord' 's first advent, with the dis- coveries proper to it, been equally well informed respecting the circum- stances of his second. But satisfactorily, as it appears to me, as this view of the subject reconciles the Apostles' imperfect knowledge on this one point, — on what was beyond their commission, — with their full knowledge on others, — on all that was within it ; and fully as it relieves them from the imputation either of disgraceful ignorance or wilful misrepre- sentation ; I do not expect that it will meet the approbation of those advocates for common opinions, not belonging to the class of the Candid and Reflecting, who had rather deliver the sacred writers, gagged and bound, into the hands of their enemies, to be dealt with as they see fit, than vindicate them by an explanation which detects deficiencies in the system of their interpreters. But should any such undertake the refutation of what has here been advanced, let them recollect, that, to succeed in that attempt two things are necessary : first, they must show that some of the passages quoted above, and in the note, from the writings of the Apostles, do explicitly state, that the second coming of the Lord was not to be expected in that age, nor for seventeen centuries after it ; and secondly, that none of the above cited texts do affirm that it was then at hand. Unless these points be proved, — that is, unless the Apostles' language can be made to affirm the contrary of what it does affirm, — all that may be alleged against the view here offered will be entirely beside the question ; and it will be difficult to deny, that the time and manner of the lord's second coming, and the meaning of the prophetic language in which that event is predicted in the Gospels and the Apocalypse, were not revealed to the Apostles, because that time had not then arrived. But surely, whoever should reflect a little upon the subject, might easily see, that the manner in which the Lord's second coming is always described in Scripture, such as his appearing in the clouds, attended by angels blowing trumpets, &c, is purely figurative and 18 SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. symbolic ; that it is couched in the purely prophetic style of writing ; and all expositors admit that there is a distinct prophetic style used in the Scriptures, in which the ideas intended are representatively shadowed out by the images used for expressing them. Only look at the subject with some degree of elevation of mind, and you will see, that for the Lord Jesus Christ to appear in the clouds which float about the earth, at a height never exceeding a very few miles from its surface, in a form visible to the natural eyes of the inhabitants of the earth, is really an absolute impossibility. At his first advent, indeed, the Lord was beheld by men in the natural world, and even dwelt for a considerable time among them : but the reason was, be- cause he was then in a natural body, not yet glorified, assumed from the mother, Mary : but, as I propose to show in a future Section of this Appeal, during his abode on earth, and at his resurrection, he made his human nature completely divine, and it was in a glorified or deified form, no longer partaking of the gross properties of matter, that he ascended to heaven : Hence he never was visible to any after he rose again, except when he expressly manifested himself to them, which was done by opening the sight of their spirits. Had he still been visible to the natural eye, how came it to pass that he never was seen by the Jews after his resurrection ? Had he still been in a body that was obvious to the natural senses, how did he appear sud- denly in the midst of his disciples, when they were assembled secretly, for fear of the Jews, and the door was fastened to secure them from interruption ? Our natural sight will not penetrate through walls and doors ; how then, to such sight, can that divine form be visible, which walls and doors could not exclude 2 Thus the Lord's glorified person can now only be made visible to man by opening the sight of his spirit, as was done in all the cases of spiritual appearance recorded in the Scriptures ; and the Lord can only thus be manifested to those who are in the acknowledgment of him : for this reason he never made himself visible, after his resurrection, to the gainsaying Jews ; and for the same reason he never will make himself visible to the inhabitants of the world at large : consequently, it is not in a natural sense that he will appear in the clouds of the sky, showing himself to all the dwellers upon the earth. But that the Lord is not literally to make his second advent in this manner, is evident from another consideration, the force of which every one may appreciate, whether he sees the strength of the last argument or not : and that other circumstance is, that in other passages of Scripture his coming is described in a different fashion. In the nine- teenth chapter of the Revelation, he is represented as coming riding on a white horse, with all the armies of heaven following him upon white horses. Now, who ever understood that this description was to be taken literally ? No person ever conceived that He would come SECOND COMING OF THE LOED. 19 to judgment riding on horseback, followed by innumerable troops of angels, all likewise mounted on horseback : yet there is no reason for rejecting the expectation of his coming in this manner, and regarding the language as entirely figurative, than there is for adopting that of his coming in the clouds, and regarding this as a literal representa- tion of the fact. The truth is, that both are entirely figurative, and of nearly the same signification ; since his coming on a white horse denotes his restoring the right understanding of the Word, and illuminating thereby the intellectual faculties of man; and his coming in the clouds with power and great glory denotes the unfolding of the literal sense of the Word, and his presence in the bright glory of its spiritual and genuine signification. I have endeavoured to prove this at length in another publication ; in which it is attempted to be shown, that the Lord is called the Son of man, in Scripture, in reference to his character as the Word or Divine Truth ; * and it is always by his title of Son of man that the Lord himself speaks of his second coming ; So, the passage just referred to in the Revelation expressly states, that he who is to come riding on the white horse, is the Word of God. Evidently then, the promised coming of the Lord as the Son of man and the Word of God, must denote a new discovery of the divine truth of his Word, — a restoration of the genuine doc- trines of the church, — a revival of a just knowledge of the Lord and of his worship, and an opening of the sacred contents of his Holy Word. But that this is, in general, what is meant by the second coming of the Lord, — by the appearing of the Son of man in the clouds with power and great glory, and by his riding in heaven, as the Word of God, on a white horse,— is further evident from the fact, that it is to be accompanied or followed by the descent from heaven of a New Jerusalem. We read in Rev. xxi, " I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away ; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them and. be their God." f Now what can this, with any degree of consistency, be understood to signify, but a renewal of the true church of God among mankind ? Many, I know, apply it to the state of the saints in heaven : but in this they do the most palpable violence to the words : for how can that be pretended to be in heaven, which is expressly said to come down out of heaven ? how can that describe the state of saints in heaven, which is expressly said to be the • Plenary Inspiration, &c, p. 333, &c. + Ver. 1, 2, 3. 20 SECOND COJIIXG OF THE LOED. tabernacle, or abiding place, of God, with men ? Accordingly the best interpreters apply it to a new state of the church on earth. Thus Dr. Hammond, a celebrated writer of the Church of England, com- ments upon it thus : " That it signifies not the state of glorified saints in heaven, appears by its descending from heaven in both places [where it is mentioned] ; and that, according to the use of the phrase, ch. x. 1 and xviii. 1, is an expression of some eminent benefit to the church : and being here set down, with the glory of God upon it, it will signify the pure Christian Church, joining Christian practice with the profession thereof, and that in a flourishing condition, expressed by the new heaven and new earth. In this sense," he adds, " we have the supernal Jerusalem (Gal. iv. 26), and the New Jerusalem (Rev. iii. 12), where, to the constant professor is promised, that God will write on him the name of God, and the name of the city of God, the New Jerusalem ; which there is the pure Catholic Christian Church." As to its being first said, that John saw a new heaven and a new earth, because the former heaven and earth had passed away, all commentators admit, that that is a phrase constantly used in the prophetic style to denote a complete renovation of the thing treated of, — the putting of an entire end to one order of things, and the com- mencement of a new one, either with respect to particular or to general churches ; in which sense it occurs in numerous passages of the Old Testament, where a new heaven and earth cannot literally be meant. The common reader of the Scriptures naturally supposes, when he comes to a prophecy respecting the passing away of heaven and earth, that the phrase refers to the end of the world ; though the most simple reader must be somewhat puzzled to understand how the new heaven and new earth, spoken of as to succeed the former, can relate to the state of saints in heaven, which is the only state that our natural apprehensions lead us to look for after the end of the world. The learned, however, have long been so fully convinced, that these phrases do not in general relate to the end of the world, and to the state of the saints expected to succeed that event, that it is wonderful how they can still retain the opinion, that the end of the world is, nevertheless, predicted by any of them. To show how the learned in general understand these prophetic phrases, I will here subjoin a few quotations. Sir Isaac Newton, whose scheme of symbolical langiiage has been adopted, with some variations, by all succeeding commentators, states his general principle, and his application of it to the phrase, " heaven and earth," thus : " The figurative language of the prophets is taken from the analogy between the world natural, and an empire or king- dom considered as a world politic. Accordingly, the whole world natural, consisting of heaven and earth, signifies the whole world SECOND COMING OF THE LOUD. 21 politic, consisting of thrones and people. — The creating of a new Heaven and earth, and the passing of an old one, or the beginning and end of a world, are put for the rise and ruin of a body politic." A little extending this idea, the Rev. Mr. Faber, in his " Dissertation on the Prophecies," states his view of these symbols thus : " The symbolical heaven, when interpreted temporally, signifies the whole body politic. On the other hand, the symbolical heaven, when interpreted spiritually, signifies the whole body of the church militant. — The earth, when taken in a temporal sense, imports, in the abstract, the territorial dominions of any Pagan or irreligious empire. — In a spiritual sense, the earth denotes a state of paganism or apostacy." So Dr. Doddridge, in his paraphrase of the Lord's words, " The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken," says, " That is, according to the sublimity of prophetic language, the whole civil and ecclesiastical constitution of the nation shall not only be shocked, but totally dissolved." To the same purport, Beausobre and L'Enfant, in their note on the words, "the sun shall be darkened," observe, "The prophet Isaiah uses the same expression when foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem : it is a prophetic style, which must not be literally understood. Jesus Christ gives in these words a description of the total overthrow of the Jewish state, that was closely to follow the destruction of Jerusalem." Whether the expositions given in these examples have any truth in them or not, they are sufficient to evince that the learned have found it necessary to relinquish the literal interpretation of those passages of Scripture which speak of the passing away of heaven and earth, or of such convulsions in the heavenly bodies, as, if actual, would involve the destruction of the world. I will subjoin a few passages of Scripture, which must convince every one that such phrases are not to be literally understood. We read in Isaiah, ch. xxxiv. : "All the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll; and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off the vine, and as the falling fig from the fig-tree." This is stated as a consequence of a judgment to be performed in the land of Idumea, or Edom; for it is added, " For my sword shall be bathed in heaven ; behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judg- ment." And the reason is given for it a little further on: " For it is the Lord's day of vengeance, and the year of recompenses, for the controversy of Zion ; " — that is, because the Lord will plead the cause of his Church, signified by Zion, against those who would desrtroy her, signified by Idumea. But whatever judgments may at any time have visited the land of Idumea, they certainly were not accompanied by the dissolution of the heavens. Similar statements are made in 22 SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. Ezekiel xxxii., on occasion of predicting the conquest of Egypt ; and iu Isa. xiii., in connection with the announced destruction of Babylon: yet though it is certain that Babylon was captured by Cyrus, and Egypt subdued by Cambyses, we do not find that the heavenly bodies quaked in sympathy with those events, and fell into convulsions or dissolution. The prophet Joel also announces similar disorders in the heavens as to happen at the time of the Lord's advent in the flesh, almost in the same terms as are used by the Lord himself in reference to his second coming : "I will show wonders in the heavens above, and signs in the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke ; the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come ; " which prophecy is quoted by Peter (Acts ii. 16) as being then fulfilled. As then no destruction of heaven and earth, and no such convulsions as would include their destruction, took place at that time, so, we may con- clude, neither will such things happen when the Lord's predictions respecting his second coming are fulfilled, or when that great change takes place which the Revelator foretels under the figure of the removal of heaven and earth. In like manner, the establishing of new heavens and a new earth is announced in prophecies which have received their fulfilment. Thus the whole 65th chapter of Isaiah treats of the calling of the Gentiles and rejection of the Jews at the Lord's coming into the world, and establishing the Christian Church : which last event is figuratively predicted by the Lord's saying, " Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth ; and the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind : " that the church under a new dispensation, or in a new and improved state, is what is here treated of, is evident from its being immediately added, " Behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy : " and all that follows shows, that it is not a state in the other world that is spoken of, but in this. That this is the purport of the phrase, is further evident from a passage in the 51st chapter ; where speaking of the restoration of the'ehurch, the Lord says, "I have put my words into thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of my hand, that I may plant the heavens and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people." Thus then we also find, that, in the Old Testament as well as in the Revelation, the formation of new heavens and earth is mentioned in connection with the restoration and re-establishment of Zion or Jerusalem : the reason is, because Zion and Jerusalem are constantly mentioned in prophecy as types of the church itself. In the Old Testament, when their restoration is spoken of, they are evident types of the church which was to be raised in consequence of the Lord's coming into the world, and called the Christian Church, to distinguish it from the Israelitish or Jewish ; consequently, in the Revelation, a SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 23 • Nsw Jerusalem, can mean nothing else than a New Church, — a res- toration of pure Christianity to more than its primitive glory. And both these events are said to be accompanied with the formation of a new heaven and new earth, to denote the entire newness of the res- pective churches as to their inward life and outward conversation, internal principles and external practice ; all the corrupt persua- sions and evils which had perverted the former churches being wholly removed. Surely then it must be allowed to be evident, that the circumstance of the manifestation of the New Jerusalem being fixed by the prophet after the passing away of the former heaven and earth, and the formation of a new heaven and earth in their place, so far from sanc- tioning the opinion that it is a figure used to describe the state of the saints in heaven, only proves, more conclusively, that it is intended to denote an entirely new state of the church on earth ; for it is palpably evident, that in every other instance throughout the Scrip tures in which the passing away of heaven and earth, or convulsions in the heavenly bodies equivalent to their dissolution, are mentioned, such catastrophes in outward nature are not meant, but that they are prophetic phrases solely intended to express an entire change and renewal in the thing which is the subject of the prophecy. II. Here, then, I trust you will admit, we have a clear and, at least, highly probable view of the signification of the prophecies which announce a Second Coming of the Lord, and the manifestation of a New Jerusalem : the next consideration is, Are there any circum- stances and signs observable at the present day, which lead to the conclusion, that the time for the great divine interference thus pro- phetically delineated has arrived ? Permit me, before I proceed to offer an answer to this question, to observe, that an affirmative reply does not, as too many are inconsiderately apt to suppose, necessarily involve an absurdity. All who acknowledge the authority of the Scriptures, must allow, that the Second Coming of the Lord most assuredly will take place at some period or other ; and if, as I trust has been conclusively shown, the commonly imagined mode of his appearance cannot be the true one, it is the more probable that it will take place, as is also plainly predicted, in an unexpected time and manner ; — "in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh."* It is to be expected then, that, come when it may, multitudes — per- haps the majority — of the Christian world will be unwilling to credit the tidings, and will deride those who believe them as silly enthusiasts : — As the Lord declares again, " When the son of man cometh, shall he ftnd faith in the earth?" t When therefore we announce to the world our belief, that this consummation of divine prophecy is now * Matt. xxiv. 44. + Luke, xvii. 8. 24 SECOND coirrxG OF the loed. taking place, we are aware that we stall draw upon ourselves the contempt and ridicule of the superficial and the frivolous : hut we are at the same time sure, that all the sober and the reflecting, — all who will candidly examine the reasons which have brought us to this con- viction, must become sensible of their strength, and will find it no easy matter to put them aside. Certain it is, that all divine predic- tion must one day be fulfilled : if then what is advanced in proof of such fulfilment having taken place be not altogether unworthy of the subject, they who urge it are at least entitled to be listened to vuth candour, and to have their arguments fairly considered. If, on the contrary, the mere asserting that the time has arrived for the accom- plishment of a great Scripture-prophecy, is sufficient to authorise the treatment of those who advance it with derision and contempt, then it was right in the Scribes and Pharisees to treat with contempt the testimony of the Baptist ; and it will be difficult to prove them wrong when they crucified the Saviour himself. If then the view of the nature of the promised Second Advent of the Lord, and descent of the New Jerusalem which has now been imperfectly sketched, should be deemed probable and satisfactory, I might urge, that the publication, in the present day, of a system of Christian doctrine in which such a view is afforded, alone gives reason to apprehend, upon the principle that the prophecies of Scripture are never exactly understood till the time of their accom- plishment, that the time for the accomplishment of these great prophecies has arrived, or, at least, must be near at hand. It is indeed true, as has been shown, that many have before concluded, from the known signification of Jerusalem, in prophetic language, as denoting the church (a signification explicitly assigned it by the Apostles *), that the New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse must signify a new and greatly improved state of Christianity in the world : our explication then of this sublime prophecy is not new, except in regard to the greater precision with which the particulars of its signification are unfolded : but the explication of the prophecy of the coming of the Lord in the clouds of heaven, as denoting his presence in the literal sense of his Word and the unfolding of the bright glory of its spiritual or internal sense, was never known in the church, till delivered in the doctrines which we believe to be those of the " Xew Jerusalem : " if then this is the true explication (and that it is so is capable of being proved with a weight of evidence that makes nega- tion difficult f), this circumstance alone affords a sign, that the time for the accomplishment of these predictions, in their true sense, which is their spiritual sense, has arrived. The mere statement of this * Gal. iv. 26 ; Heb. xii. 22. (• See some of this evidence in "The Plenary Inspiration," &c, in the passage referred to in a former note, and in the Appendix to that work, No. 4 SECOND COMING OF THE IOKD. 2.3 argument here may not appear to carry much weight : but when it is connected with a knowledge of what the doctrines which we believe to be those of " the New Jerusalem" are ; when these doctrines are seen to exhibit all the great truths of pure Christianity in a clearer light than ever they were placed in before, and to discover with demonstrative evidence the errors of the sentiments by which their genuine lustre has been long obscured ; when, together with the doctrines of pure Christianity, the spiritual sense of the Scriptures is seen to be truly unfolded, its existence demonstrated, and the Word of God proved in consequence to be the Word of God indeed : — when, I say, these truths are seen, as they may be seen, in the writings of the Author we so highly esteem ; every mind which duly appreciates them will be apt to conclude, that such discoveries could never have been made by any unassisted human intellect, and that the only probable way of assigning them an origin, is, to regard them as a consequence of that Second Coming of the Lord which they announce. I do not however insist upon this argument at present ; but I trust that some of the considerations which give it weight, will appear in the progress of this Appeal. But beside such evidences that the present is the era of the Second Coming of the Lord as require examination to discern them, are there none which may be obvious even to the superficial observer ? It is said, that " every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him ; " * words which imply, that his coming must be attended with signs perceptible to every understanding, even to those who do not, and will not, acknowledge him, how palpably soever the signs may declare his advent. Are there then any such signs as these exhibited before the world at this day ? I answer without hesitation, Such signs are abundant and obvious ; so much so, that there is not one person in this country, possessing a share of information and observa- tion sufficient to raise him above the most stupid of the vulvar, who has not remarked them with astonishment, — who does not behold them making continually fresh calls upon his attention. It is true, that, though the signs are obvious, the true cause from which they proceed is not generally adverted to. Because the manner of the Lord's second coming, like that of his first coming, differs from the common expectation, his presence is not generally discerned now, any more than it was then : But this only strengthens the parallelism of the case ; since the Lord rebuked that generation also, because they could not " discern the signs of the times." f But whether discerned, — rightly weighed and discriminated, — or not, the signs have been such as to force themselves on the notice of all. Does not every voice Confess that we are living in a most extraordinary era of the world ? * Rev. i. 7. t Matt. xvi. 3 ; Luke, xii. 56. 26 SECOND COMINQ OF THE LOED. Is not every mind impressed with the conviction that there is some- thing almost preternatural in the character of the present times ? Has not the change which has taken place during the last forty or fifty years, the seeds of which had been fermenting for twenty or thirty years previously, in the whole aspect of Europe, of Christendom, of the world, been such as has filled with amazement every one who has witnessed it, every one who contemplates it ? After every section of the great family of mankind has been seen struggling through convulsions which seemed to threaten the dissolution of all human society, does not order, — a new and improved order, — appear again to be emerging out of chaos ? Are not extraordinary improvements, in every thing connected with the comforts of human life, and the advancement of the species in civilisation, in knowledge, and, ulti- mately, in virtue, continually springing up ? and are they not con- tinually calling forth, from every quarter, exclamations of surprise, and expanding every bosom with the hope, that the opening of a new and happier day than the world has ever before seen is now dawning on mankind ? But I forbear to enter more particularly into this delightful part of my argument at present, as it will be necessary to turn to it again when I come, in the next Section but one, to treat of the Last Judgment, — a subject intimately connected with that of the Second Coming of the Lord. Meanwhile, this slight hint may suffice, perhaps, to open new ideas in the minds of the Reflecting, when they turn their attention to these striking facts. At present I will only say, that in the wonderful visitations of Providence, both in the way of judgment and of mercy, which the present generation has witnessed and is witnessing still, we behold plain signs of the times of the Second Advent. They are such, unquestionably, as are commensurate with the grandest cause which can be assigned for their production : and how can they so worthily be considered, as by beholding in them the results of the fulfilment of the last great predictions of Holy Writ, — as by viewing them as harbingers of the Second Coming of the Lord ? Ultima Cumfei venit jam carminis aetas : Maguus ab integro sreclorum nascitur ordo : Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturuia regna. III. But, in the third place, while there are many circumstances and signs in the political and social aspect of the world at this day, which indicate that the time for the divine interference described in Scripture as the Second Coming of the Lord has arrived ; are there not also circumstances in the situation of the world in regard to religion, which evince, that the restoration of true religion, promised under the figures of a Second Coming of the Lord and establisbment of a New Jerusalem, cannot be much longer delayed without the most serious injury to the human race ? It may at first perhaps appear paradoxical, that I should, on the one hand, advert to signs SECOND COIIING OF THE LOKD. 27 of the times which promise to the human race a new career of improvement and happiness, and draw thence an argument for the present being the era of the long-expected Second Coming of the Lord ; and, on the other hand, that I should point to signs which threaten to the human race most serious injury, to deduce thence also an argument in proof of the same position. But when the matter is accurately inspected, it will be found that there is, in this, no inconsistency, and that the two arguments, instead of neutralising, do in reality strongly support each other. For all the pleasing circumstances that have been alluded to only refer to man as a rational being and an inhabitant of this world ; his state in regard to religion refers to him as a spiritual being also, and the destined inhabitant of eternity : an improvement of his condition in the former respect evinces an increased action of the divine influences in his behalf, the ultimate aim of which is, to effect an improvement of his condition in the latter : but could the designs of Providence in this latter respect be frustrated, no improvement of the lower kind could bring real blessings, or could possibly be permanent. When a piece of new land is to be brought into cultivation, the first thing to be done is, to clear the surface of its useless products, and to prepare the soil : the next is, to sow the seeds from which is to be produced the desired harvest. All improvements in the general condition of the human race, and in the natural powers and attainments of the human mind, answer to the process of the preparation of the soil ; but when it is thus prepared, unless the seeds of genuine Divine Truth be sown in it, the rankest weeds will spring up in abundance, and all the pains of the preparation be made abortive. Here then let us ask a few questions. Do the views of religion generally entertained afford these seeds ? Are the seeds which they do afford such as the soil of the human mind, in its present improved state of preparation, finds congenial to itself, and which it will willingly admit into its bosom ? If not, is there not a manifest necessity, if man continues to be an object of regard to his Maker, that a new dispensation of Divine Truth, adapted to the present state and wants of the human mind, should be communicated from its Divine Source ; — a dispensation by which the veil of error, in which the doctrines of genuine Christianity have been too long involved, should be torn away, and the face of pure Religion, in all the glory of her native beauty, should be again discovered to mankind ? And should such a dispensation be too long withheld ; — in other words, should the Second Coming of the Lord be too long delayed : is there not reason to apprehend that the rank weeds of Infidelity, which have already, in copious abundance, begun to appear, would overspread the whole field of the human mind, and blast all hopes of any real improvement, in wisdom and happiness, for the human race ? D 2 28 SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. To consider each of these questions with the attention which its importance demands, would require more space than can consistently be allowed to this portion of our Appeal : I shall therefore answer them veiy briefly, and leave you, to whose reflections my Appeal is addressed, more maturely to weigh them for yourselves. The first of them, — Do the views of religion note generally enter- tained afford the pure seeds of Divine Truth ? — will perhaps receive a conclusive answer in some of the future Sections of this Appeal : for if it shall then appear that the Doctrines of Genuine Truth on the most momentous subjects of faith and life are different from those commonly maintained, it is evident, that pure divine truth is not in these to be found : and I had rather this should thus appear by inference, than enter into a harsh exposure of what we esteem the errors of the prevailing views on religion. The second question, — Are the seeds which the prevailing views of religion do afford, such as the soil of the human mind, in its present improved state of preparation, finds congenial to itself, and which it will willingly admit into its bosom ? — may perhaps be answered without offence to any one ; for it is a simple question of fact ; and the fact, as obvious to every one, decidedly answers it in the negative. Is it not a fact which every one has observed, that the great bulk of mankind, at the present day, hold their religious sentiments much more loosely than was formerly the case ? They, even, who are most decidedly convinced of the truth of the Christian religion in general, are, for the most part, much less tenacious than their fathers used to be of the truth of any particular scheme of it : indeed, were I to say, that few feel any considerable confidence in the truth of the doctrines held by their respective sects as the very doctrines of Christianity, I believe I should only state the sum of all individual experience on the subject. Among the evident signs of a great change which has taken place in the human mind, or in men's modes of thinking, this is one ; that men are universally become more disposed than formerly to inquire into the truth of the doctrines which they are required to believe, and are becoming daily less and less capable of acquiescing in implicit faith without the exercise of their own reason and understanding : how then is it possible that doctrines, the chief of which have always been acknowledged by their advocates to be incomprehensible, — to be matters of such a faith as rejects all interference of the understanding, because, if the understanding were allowed its exercise, it would reject them ; — how is it possible that such doctrines can retain their influence over the human mind in its present altered state ? Most unquestionably true is the remark of a late celebrated Christian orator, — a remark made by him long before he diverged into his peculiarities, — that the forms under which religion is usually presented, though sufficient to feed SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 29 with spiritual sustenance the minds of men in past ages, are no longer suited to the necessities of the present, but are become as " lifeless and bare trunks containing in them neither sap nor nourish- ment." * Unsatisfying dogmas, if they led the well-disposed mind to the acknowledgment of his God and Saviour and to the life of religion, might answer the main ends of true religion, so long as the human mind could simply acquiesce in them without inquiry : but when the human mind has come into such a state as to be satisfied with a blind faith no longer ; — when it also is prepared, by the improved culture of its rational powers, for the reception of the seeds of the pure and genuine truth ; — it no longer finds such unsatisfying dogmas congenial to itself; it no longer can draw from them its needed stores of spiritual nourishment ; and it refuses therefore to admit their seeds into its bosom. That this is, most extensively, the state of the human mind at this day in regard to the views of religion commonly prevailing, is too evident for the most determined advocate of those views to deny. Then, assuredly, our next question must be answered at once in the affirmative; and it must be admitted. That there is a manifest necessity, if man continues to be an object of regard to his Maker, that a neio dispensation of Divine Truth, adapted to the present state and wants of the human mind, should be communicated from its Divine Source : — in other words, that the long expected Second Coming of the Lord should in these times be revealed. This dis- pensation must be such, as to remove the clouds of error in which the beauty of pure Christianity has been long involved ; to restore the right understanding of the "Word of God, and conclusively to demonstrate its divine origin; to exhibit, in a rational as well as Scriptural light, the divinity of the Christian Redeemer, without the just acknowledgment of which no Church truly called Christian can exist ; and to display in a satisfactory manner the nature of man's immortality and of his life hereafter, at the same time that it re-discovers the true nature of the means by which that immortality may be made an immortality of happiness. In short, it must be a dispensation which shall effect the union of reason with religion, without divesting the latter of its spirituality, as merely rational (as they are called) schemes of religion invariably have done ; but which shall add spirituality to reason, and exalt it with both. Whether the system of religion embraced by those who humbly trust that they belong to the New Church of the Lord, which they believe to be predicted in the Revelation under the figure of a New Jerusalem, answers to this character, may in some measure appear as we proceed : but, without reference to any specific system, it seems * Rev. E. Irving in Lis Farewell Sermon at Glasgow on his first coming to London. CO SECOND C01IIXG OF THE LORD. difficult to deny, that the communication of such a dispensation of Divine Truth as we have here slightly sketched an idea of, is essentially important to the present state and spiritual necessities of mankind. For should such a dispensation he too long withheld, must we not answer our last question also in the affirmative, and conclude, That there is reason to apprehend that the rank weeds of Infidelity, which hare already, in copious abundance, begun to appear, would overspread the whole field of the human mind, and blast all hopes of any real improvement, in wisdom and happiness, for the human race f The strong hold of Infidelity is, the irrationality of the doctrines commonly affirmed to be those of the Word of God. These are such as reason, when once it ventures to look at them, must reject : and when such doctrines are supposed to be those of the Scriptures, and the true nature of the Scriptures themselves is also totally misunder- stood, the inevitable consequence is, that the Scriptures are rejected with them. Set then the Scriptures in their proper light ; especially, prove that they are written by the laws of that invariable corre- spondence or analogy which exists by creation between natural things and spiritual, whence, while merely natural things are for the most part treated of in their literal sense, they are only used as types of purely spiritual ideas ; — thus, prove that the Scriptures have in them a spiritual sense in which the wisdom of God in all its glory shines : then show what their doctrines really are, and evince that the genuine dictates of Scripture invariably harmonise with the genuine dictates of Reason, — that though they contain truths far beyond the reach of unassisted Reason to discover, they always are such as Reason, thus enlightened, accepts, approves, and can by numerous arguments confirm : thus, exhibit the main topics of religion in their proper light ; and you immediately deprive Infidelity of its power over the unsophisticated mind, that retains its unbiassed love of truth, and desire of knowing it. But certainly, nothing like this is done in the views of religion commonly prevailing ; and we see the awful con- sequence : we see, not only deism, but atheism, unblushingly avowed by numbers even in this favoured land ; while on the continent of Europe it is too well known that they are far more universal, both among the Roman Catholic and the Protestant States. The fashion- able school of divinity, even, through a great part of Christendom, led by the late Drs. Semler and Eichhorn, allows nothing of the proper nature of inspiration to the New Testament, and denies it to the Old Testament altogether, insomuch that the Consistory of "Wurteniberg have gone to the length of forbidding the clergy to take from the Old Testament the subjects of their sermons.* Here are plain symptoms * See the Intellectual Repository for the New Church, Second Series, vol i., p. 608. SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. 31 indeed of a growing tendency to infidelity : Is there anything in the views of the Scriptures, and the doctrines of Christianity, commonly entertained, which is capable of stemming the torrent ? Is there not then reason to apprehend the most disastrous consequences to the human race, should the proper antidote he much longer withheld, — should the Second Coming of the Lord, in the sense explained above, he much longer delayed ? IV. To come to the conclusion of the present subject. What has been offered, may, I would fain hope, have been sufficient to satisfy all who consider the important subject with due reflection, that our pretensions are not very extravagant when we affirm our belief, that a new dispensation of Divine Truth is in reality in this day communicated, and that we are actually living in the age of the Second Coming of the Lord. But some of you, perhaps, may be afraid to give ear to the arguments presented by the signs we have considered, and to admit the belief, that the light by which they are discovered, and the doctrines with which they are connected, are really those of the New Jerusalem, for fear of incurring the reproach of enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the charge with which the world is ever ready to stigmatise all who sincerely believe that God exercises a providence in human affairs, especially in whatever relates to his Church, and who practically admit the acknowledgment, that the predictions of Scripture are not to remain a dead letter for ever, but that it really is possible, that what Divine Truth has foretold, may one day come to pass. Indeed, none can consistently ridicule others for believing that a prediction of Scripture has come to pass, but they who in their hearts do not believe in the Scriptures at all, nor even in the Omniscience and foreknowledge of the Deity. It is true that there have been wild enthusiasts enow, who have grounded their idle fancies on the prophecies of Scripture. But how have such enthusiasts usually acted ? By expecting some great thing to take place in outward nature, and themselves to be exalted to high honour and worldly dignity ; — by fancying that Jesus Christ would come in person to reign on the earth, and that they that have faith to believe this would be made his vicegerents in the government of mankind : with other extravagances of a similar kind, originating in a misconception of the true nature of divine prediction, and of the manner in which it ia to be fulfilled. Look at the pretensions of the false Christs and false prophets that have arisen in different ages; and you will find notions of this kind to pervade them all. All such flights of enthusiasm find a complete antidote in the doctrine, which we are satisfied is as true now as at the Lord's first coming in the flesh, that his kingdom is not of this world. If we were to hold out, as enthusiasts have done, peculiar privileges on this side of the grave, wc perhaps might, like some of them, soon find many more disciples ; 32 8EC0XB COMING OF THE LORD. but they would be such as would not be 'worth having, because such as, like unconverted Peter, savour not the things of God, but the things that be of men.* We have no worldly dignities to offer, — no, nor any short path to heaven. The only path to the blissful seats, with which we are acquainted, is the path of repentance aud regeneration ; and these operations, we believe, cannot be radically performed, but by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, believed in as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, received in humility, and com- bined with hearty obedience on the part of man. The law that regulates admission into the New Church or New Jerusalem, is, that " there shall in no wise enter therein any thing that is unclean, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie ;" f by which we understand, that whosoever would be benefited by the new dispensation of the everlasting gospel, must regulate his life, from his inmost thoughts to his outmost deeds, by the immutable laws of order contained in the divine commandments ; especially labouring to remove from his affections whatsoever is inconsistent with the love and purity of the heavenly kingdom, and from his thoughts or opinions whatever is disowned by the Divine Truth, which constitutes the law of that kingdom : and this he must do ia humble dependence upon, and devout elevation of his mind to, the Lord Jesus Christ, as Him who ever reigns in that kingdom, the King of kings and Lord of lords. We do not believe then that a new dispensation of the everlasting gospel is offered to man, to contradict, in the slightest degree, former dispensations, but to fulfil them, by introducing into them their proper spirit and life. We are convinced, that they who embrace the new dispensation should walk in newness of the spirit, not in oldness of the letter ; that as all former dispensations have required men to love God and keep his commandments, so in this they must do so from a deeper ground in the heart, and with more entire conformity in their practice. Thus we believe that the distinguishing superiority of the new dispensation will consist solely in these things ; — the superior clearness with which the person and nature of the God who is therein to be worshipped will be seen, with a more plain discovery of the way in which an acceptable service can be offered to him ; combined with the more powerful communication of a divine influence from him, enabling those who acknowledge him to fight successfully against their own corruptions, and so to render to him this acceptable service. Whilst then we point out to mankind the signs which demonstrate that the Second Coming of the Lord is arrived, we do not mean to fill their heads with idle fancies of no one knows what ; but to enforce upon them the fact, that now are they called, more unequivo- • Matt. xvi. 23. t Rev. xxi. 27. THE HESURKECTION. 33 cally than at any former period, to acknowledge the only true God, arid to be assured that the first of all the commandments is, to love the Lord our God with all the heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that the second is like unto it — to love our neighbour as ourselves. "We only wish to urge upon them the necessity of becoming such servants of God and such friends of mankind, by the assurance that every divine aid is offered that will enable them to do so. If this be enthusiasm, it is an enthusiasm, allow me to say, which every sincerely well disposed mind ought by all means to foster : it is an enthusiasm which every friend of humanity ought to desire should become universal : for it is an enthusiasm which, if once made universal, would speedily banish evil and misery from the earth, and bring on halcyon days of universal contentment and peace. section in. THE RESURRECTION. PART I. The true Doctrine Proposed, and Texts cited in Opposition Considered. The next subject which seems most naturally to demand our at- tention, after having considered that of the Second Coming of the Lord, is that of the Last Judgment; for that the execution of the Last Judgment must accompany the arrival of the Second Advent, is universally believed by Christians, and is most plainly announced in the "Word of God. But here a question of great importance arises ; — Where is to be the scene of the last judgment ? — is it to be accom- plished in the natural or in the spiritual world ? As the common opinion is, not only, as the apostle declares, that man is to be judged " for the things done in the body," but also, beyond what either the Apostle or any other divine authority has declared, that he is to be judged in the body, the general expectation is, that the body is to be called out of the tomb for this purpose ; and, consequently, that the scene of the last judgment is to be in this world of nature. The Scriptures have conducted us to a quite different conclusion. We are satisfied, upon their authority, which here assuredly co- incides with the plainest dictates of reason, that when the body is laid aside by death, we have done with it for ever ; that man then becomes a living inhabitant of a spiritual world, in which he is to continue his existence for ever: and that, consequently, the Last Judgment can only be accomplished in the world in which all the 34 THE RESUKKECTIOX. human race are collected together, — that is, in the spiritual world, and not in the natural world, to which they who have once quitted it will return no more. Before then you can decide upon the sub- ject of the Last Judgment, it is necessary that I should appeal to you upon that of the Resurrection. Allow me then to state, in a few words, the sum of oui views upon this subject ; they being such as we think are peculiarly adapted to recommend themselves, independently of all argument, to the Serious and the Reflecting. We believe the true doctrine of the Scriptures, upon the im- portant question of the Resurrection, to be this: That man rises from the grave, — not merely from the grave in the earth, but from the grave of his dead material body, immediately after death ; that he then finds himself in a world, not of mere shadows, but of sub- stantial existences, himself being a real and substantial man, in per- fect human form, possessing aU the senses and powers proper to a man, though he is no longer visible to men in this world, whose senses and capacities of perception are comparatively dull and gross, owing to their being still shrouded over with a gross body of un- apprehensive clay.* The latter part of this assertion, that the spirit of a man is a real substance, though not a material substance, and thus is the man himself, is capable of being proved, as may perhaps appear in the sequel, by most conclusive arguments, both from reason and Scrip- ture : but I will here confine myself to the former part of the doc- trine ; — that man rises from the dead immediately after death. Virtually, this includes the other. Permit me, then, here to give vent to my own feelings by saying, that this is indeed a " most glorious and heart-cheering doctrine; " whereas to suppose, with our opponents, that there is no real re- surrection except the resurrection of the body, is to open the door to the most dark and gloomy apprehensions. "What is become of the first inhabitants of this globe, and all who lived before the flood ? Can any one seriously suppose that they are out of existence, or, at best, have only a very imperfect and uncomfortable existence, because destitute of that body which has been undistinguishably mixed with the elements for five thousand years ? and that they are still to pine for no one knows how many thousand years longer, before they wiU be themselves again, or can enjoy the happiness which Scripture everywhere promises to the saints, without any- where hinting at the immeasurably long, dreary interval of suspense, * See this statement, and other parts of this Section, explained and vindicated in " Strictures" upon a pamphlet by a Mr. T. Spencer, inserted by me in the Intellectual Repository and New Jerusalem Magazine, vol. iii., for 1S34 and 1835, pp. 422—432, 5S2— 594, and 65o-— 663. THE RESURRECTION. 35 which they are to languish through before they can enjoy it P How does such a notion comport with the answer of the Lord Jesus Christ to the carnal-minded Sadducees, half whose doctrine, at least, has been translated into the creed of the opposers of the New Church: for the Sadducees affirmed, "that there is no resur- rection, neither angel, nor spirit : " * and the opposers of the New Church, such at least as the one I have now chiefly in my eye,t affirm, that there is no real resurrection but that of the body. But is not the answer of the Lord Jesus Christ to the ancient Sad- ducees, an answer to these modern ones likewise? "Now that the dead are raised," saith he, "even Moses" — Moses, who never openly treats of the subject, — but " even Moses showed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob : for he is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him. "J Is not this affirming, that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were living at the very time that this was written of them by Moses, — that they were not then slumbering in their graves? Most truly does an accuser say, "that the doc- trine of the resurrection may justly be called the key-stone of the gospel dispensation : " but to say, that the doctrine of the rcsurrcc tion of the body is so, is grossly to pervert the plain meaning of the gospel-teaching. This writer, in his zeal for his body of clay, goes so far as to affirm, that to deny, not the resurrection, observe, but the resurrection of the body, if it is not the sin against the Holy Ghost, is, in his serious opinion, something very near it ! and then, as if determined to cut us ofl' from all hope of salvation, he adds, " to hear Christ say, ' I will raise him up at the last day,' and then tacitly [as he means to say we do] to give Christ the lie " (such is his shocking expression!) "must be a crime of no common de- scription.'^ But who that knows the use of language, would call the material body, him ? The Lord is not here speaking of the body, but of the man; " I will raise him up at the last day;" not, "I will send his soul from heaven to gather up the ashes of his body." The words at length are, " This is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life : and I will raise him up at the last daj'."|| — Is it the body which thus seeth and believeth ? * Acts xxiii. 8. t I allude to the Eev. Mr. Beaumont, whose " Anti-Swedenborg" called forth the first edition of this " Appeal ; " and where I make any adverse quota- tions, without specifically naming the author, it is from that publication that they are taken. I notice none, however, but what, in substance, are commuu to most of our adversaries. J Luke xx. 37, 38. See this subject fully examined in Strictures, &c. Intellectual Repository for 1835, pp. 428 — 431. § Anti-Swcdeuborg, p. 50. || John vi. 40. See Strictures, &c, ibid. pp. 583 — 589. 86 THE RESURRECTION'. That man is not to slumber in a state of insensibility till the last day of the world, but that it is the last day with every man when he dies, is evident from the manner in which the Lord cor- rects Martha's mistaken notion respecting it. " Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day."* Here Jesus perceives that she had in her mind only the notion of a dis- tant resurrection : wherefore he replies, " I am the resurrection and the life : he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and he that liveth and believeth in me, shall never die."f Here, because, in the divine idea, no life but spiritual life is worthy of the name, the privilege of enjoying it is confined to believers; but of these the divine Saviour declares, that their life shall never he perceptibly interrupted. They have begun to live here, and they shall live on to eternity, — " they shall never die." To affirm, then, that there is no real resurrection but the resurrection of the body, and to apply all that is said upon the subject in Scripture to this imaginary resurrection ; to affirm, particularly, that it is the resurrection of the body which the Lord means, when he says, " I will raise him up at the last day ; " — I will not adopt the coarse and profane language employed against us, by saying it is giving Christ the lie, — but I must say, it is not only directly contradicting him, but it is making him contradict himself. Jesus Christ affirms, that he who believeth in him shall never die ; and to prevent men from wondering how this can be, when men do die, to all appearance, at the close of their life in the world, he assures them, that at the last day of this life they shall be transplanted into life eternal: — " Every one that seeth the Son, and believeth on him, shall have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day." That would be a strange sort of everlasting life, which was to be inter- rupted by an interval of no one knows how many thousands of years. Even supposing that the body were to live again, it is quite evident that it is not the life of the body of which the Lord is speak- ing, when he speaks of everlasting life, since the life of the body is not, upon any hypothesis, an everlasting life : consequently, it is not the body of which he speaks when he says, " I will raise him up at the last day." The whole declaration is only applicable to the spirit, which is the man himself, to which the body is only an instrument of service while he remains in a world and state where its services are required : " The flesh," as the Lord says in the same discourse, "profiteth nothing. "J The spirit only is the real man: it is of the spirit only that life everlasting can be predicated : it is * John xi. 23, 24. See this text largely illustrated as above, pp. 589 — 591, and thp Scripture meaning of the lnxf day, pp. 591 — 594. t Yer. 2G. X John vi. 63. THE RESURRECTION. 37 this only that can be raised to the eternal world : and this resur- rection, the Lord assures us, the spirit shall experience, not after a sleep of ages, or at best a state for ages of half conscious existence, but in all the vigour of true life, as soon as it is emancipated from the shell of clay. Some, however, applying to the flesh all that is said in the Scrip- tures of the true resurrection, hesitate not to add reviling to their anathemas against those who can And in the Scriptures no such sen - timent. "A doctrine," says one, " so glorious — so awfully sublime, so clearly taught in the sacred records [where it is not once men- tioned]— so universally believed from the beginning of the Christian era [he might have said, — before the beginning of the Christian era, — for it is a purely Jewish doctrine, and from the Jews those Chris- tians who did believe it received it] — so commonly believed by all sects and denominations of Christians even in our day, with the ex- ception of Swedenborgians, who, as many will think, deserve not the name of Christians ; this blessed doctrine, I say, is not to be given up at the ipse dixit of a madman," &c* I make no remark upon the liberality and Christian candour of such observations, but appeal to you, my reflecting readers, to judge of them as they may deserve. But why is it that most Christians at this day hold the doctrine of the resurrection of the body? I answer, Because they have not searched the Scriptures for themselves, but finding much said in the Scriptures respecting a resurrection, and having been told from their childhood that the body is to rise again, they conclude, with our accuser, that the resurrection spoken of is the resurrection of the body. And as we, for denying it, are to be put out of the pale of Christianity ; and because our accusers find it convenient to call the intelligent Swedenborg, who proves its falsehood, a madman; — (though the present writer admits that a man who could write as he did could not have been very mad, though he thinks he must have been a little mad f ; ) as, for these reasons, nothing that we can allege against it from Scripture or reason is to be listened to for a moment, we will call another witness. It will not be said, I sup- pose, that the great reasoner Locke, — the author of a work on the lleasonableness of Christianity, was not a Christian, or that he was a madman : and this great man has left on record a testimony of the conclusion to which every rational man, and every unprejudiced Christian, must come, who candidly examines the subject for him- self. In his Third Letter to the Bisliop of Worcester, cited also * Anti-Swedenborg, p. 49. + "It does appear to many, that either much learning, or something else unknown, had made Baron Swedenborg mad, if not in the highest, yet in a lower degree.'''' Anti-S. p. 6. And in pp. 7 and 8 some important doctrines tf JjwedeuLiory's are admitted to be excellent. 3S THE RESURRECTION. iii the note at the end of the chapter on Identity and Diversity, in his Essay on the Human Understanding, he says, " The resurrec- tion of the dead I acknowledge to be an article of the Christian faith : hut that the resurrection of the same body, in your Lordship's sense of the same body, is an article of the Christian faith, is what, I confess, I do not yet know. In the New Testament (wherein I think, are contained all the articles of the Christian faith,) I find our Saviour and the apostles to preach the resurrection of the dead, and the resurrection froni the dead, in many places: but I do not remember any place where the resurrection of the same body is so much as mentioned ; nay, which is very remarkable in the case, I do not remember, in any place of the New Testament, (where the general resurrection of the last day is spoken of,) any such expres- sion as the resurrection of the body, much less of the same body." At the conclusion of a long series of powerful remarks, some more of which I shall have occasion to quote, Mr. L. adds, what many would find a useful caution against a too great facility in taking for granted, that all that is usually delivered as the doctrine of Scripture really is such. " I must not part with this article of the resurrec- tion," says he, " without returning my thanks to your Lordship for making me take notice of a fault in my Essay. When I wrote that book, I took it for granted, as I doubt not but many others have done, that the Scriptures had mentioned, in express terms, the resur- rection of the body : — but upon the occasion your Lordshin has given me, in your last letter, to look a little more narrowly into what revelation has declared concerning the resurrection, and finding no such express words in Scripture as that ' the body shall rise, or be raised, or the resurrection of the body,'' I shall, in the next edition of it, change these words of my book, ' the dead bodies of men shall rise,' — into those of Scripture, ' the dead shall rise.' " After- wards, in strict agreement with our sentiments, which affirm that man rises with a real substantial body, though not with a material body, Sir. Locke adds, " Not that I question that the dead shall be raised with bodies ; but in matters of revelation I think it not only safest, but our duty, as far as any one delivers it for revelation, to keep close to the words of the Scripture ; unless he will assume to himself the authority of one inspired, or make himself wiser than the Holy Spirit himself." In these few sentences, it must, I think, be generally felt, that Mr. Locke has fully anticipated all the arguments of our accusers as professed to be drawn from Scripture, and has shown that the pas- sages adduced by them as proving their favourite notion, in reality prove no such thing. "Whether Mr. Locke's own views on the subject were in all respects correct, is unimportant ; he has sufficiently evinced, that the doctrine of the resurrection of the body cannot be THE EESUKRECTIOlf. 30 proved by Scripture. We will, however, run over the texts most frequently brought against us, to demonstrate that Mr. Locke is right in his assertion, — that not one of them speaks of any resurrec- tion of the body. The first three of the texts so commonly adduced are taken from a class of testimony which Mr. Locke would not admit in this case, — the books of the Old Testament ; for certainly, whenever the writers of the Old Testament speak of a resurrection, they speak of it in a manner so evidently figurative, that no judicious person would rely much upon an argument drawn from the literal sense of their expres- sions. It is true that the Lord Jesus Christ draws thence an argu- ment against the Sadducees, which we receive as most conclusive evidence of the reality of a resurrection, and that it takes place immediately after death : but here we have the Old Testament expounded by an infallible Interpreter, and we receive the important truth upon the authority of the Interpreter, rather than because it is plain, to ordinary apprehensions, in the text from which he deduces it. Indeed, we are authoritatively assured by the writers of the New Testament, that the doctrine of the resurrection is not, in the books of the Old Testament, openly revealed. The Apostle's assertion, that " life and immortality were brought to light through the gospel," would not be true, if life and immortality had been brought to light under the law. In defiance, however, of the authority of the Apostles, many would fain have us believe, not only that the doctrine of the resurrection, but that of the resurrection of the body, may be clearly proved from the Old Testament. How often is the array of texts on this subject opened with the celebrated passage of Job ! "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth : and though, after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God : whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another ; though my reins be consumed within me." * This text, however, which is commonly understood to teach the resurrec- tion of the body, affords a remarkable instance of the mistakes into which it is easy to run, when we read Scripture with pre-conceived opinions in our minds. For who does not see, whose eyes are not closed by his pre-conceived opinions, that this text has nothing at all to do with the subject ? Job is here speaking of the wretched state of affliction to which he was then reduced, and declaring his con- fidence that God would interpose to deliver him before his death, — not at the end of the world. "We read in chap, ii., that Satan, after having grievously afflicted Job in his property and family, demanded " permission to touch his bone and his flesh," and that " he smote * Job six. 25, 26, 27 40 THE RESURRECTION. Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown." Ac- cordingly, Job complains, a few verses before those just quoted, of being wasted away to mere skin and bone ; which he expresses by saying, "My bone cleaveth to my skin, as to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth." * Because his friends reproached him, imputing his misfortunes to his wickedness, he adds, "Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, 0 my friends , for the hand of God hath touched me. Why do ye persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh ?" f — that is, why still treat him as though he had not been sufficiently punished, though his flesh was all wasted away. "Wherefore he proceeds to express his confidence, that, not- withstanding their uncharitable judgment of him, he may still rely on God as his Vindicator, Redeemer, or Deliverer, and that God will at last appear in his behalf ; not at the last day of the world, (neither does the word day occur in the original,) but at the conclusion of his state of trial. When he adds, "and though, after my skin, worms destroy this body, [where, likewise, neither worms nor body are men- tioned in the original,] yet in my flesh shall I see God;" he does not mean to comfort himself with the thought, that though his body must now die, it will rise again, and he shall see God in his flesh, perhaps ten thousand years afterwards : but he expresses his con- fidence that, though wasted to a shadow, he shall not die, but shall see God interpose in his behalf while he still is living in the flesh and has not put it off by death. Therefore he adds, that he shall see God for himself, and his own eyes shall behold him and not another's ; meaning, that God will not put off the vindication of his innocence till after his death, in which case, though another might see justice done him, it would be no benefit to himself, but that he himself shall experience the deliverance : and this notwithstanding his anguish, mental and bodily, was aggravated to such a degree, that, as he adds, "his reins are consumed within him." Accordingly, all this pious confidence of his was justified by the event, and his hopes were com- pletely fidfilled. At the end of the book God himself is represented as interposing. In the passage we have been considering, Job says, " In my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold and not another." In the last chapter he says, " I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee." % In the passage we have been considering, Job declares his reliance that he should see God interfere as his Redeemer or De- liverer : in the last chapter, God does interfere in this character ; "and the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends ; also, the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before." " And after this lived Job a hundred and forty years, and saw bis * Ch. xix. 20. f Ver. 21, 22. J CWj. xlii. 5. THE KESUKBECTION. sous, and his son's sons, even four generations. So Job died, being old and full of days." * Can the parallelism between the expectation and the accomplishment be more complete ? What violence then is done to the text, when the conclusion of the history is disregarded, and Job's hopes are referred to an imaginary resurrection of his body ! Surely, to put this text in the front, to prove the resurrection of the body, when it has no relation to a rtsurrection of any sort, is equi- valent to an acknowledgment that the resurrection of the body is not a doctrine of the Scriptures. So plain, indeed, is it, that this text of Job has nothing to do with the subject, that this acknowledgment has forced itself on the most eminent of those who contend for the resurrection of the body. This admission, for instance, is made by the learned Dr. Hody, the author of the celebrated work, De Bibliorum Textibus Originalibus, in his work entitled, The Resurrection of the Same Body Asserted: and he cites, to the same purport, the following remarks of Grotius, which I translate as closely as possible : ' ' Not a few Christians have used this text to prove the resurrection : but to do this, they are compelled in their versions to depart much from the Hebrew, as has been observed by Mercer and others. The Hebrew," adds Grotius, " is to this effect: 'I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he at last will stand in the field (that is, will be victor). Although they (his distempers) should not only consume my skin, but also this, (namely, the fat which is under the skin,) nevertheless in my fiesh I shall see God (that is, shall experience his favour) : I, I say, with these my eyes, I, not another for me. t My reins have failed within me, (that is, my inmost parts are devoured with indignation at your reproaches.)' " — Dr. Hody, having observed " that Bishop Pearson calls this exposition ' a very new one,' " adds, " But in that he is mis- taken, for 'tis no more than what St. Chrysostom long ago thought on, and did not dislike." The fact is, that this passage was only know n, to the early Christians, through the medium of very inaccu- rate translations ; and having been once applied to the doctrine of the Resurrection, and prescriptively regarded as belonging to that subject, it afterwards required no small share of learning to discover, and of resolution, as well as of candour, to acknowledge, the impro- priety of the application. Hence, though the discovery of its inap- plicability has long since been made, few are willing to confess it; and it still continues to be cited as pertinent to the question, though, it now yields an argument only to the ignorant. t The next citation presented for notice is the following : " Therefore * Ver. 10, 16, 17. + See this text of Job, and other passages from the same book, examined at large in tho Intellectual Repository for 1825, pp. 649 — 651 ; and for 1826, pp. 148—156. 42 THE RESUEBECTION. my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth ; my flesh also shall rest in hope ; for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thy Holy One to see corruption." * This, however, is so palpably beside the question, that it is needless to waste words in exposing its inapplicability. The declaration is made respecting a Holy Being, whose body was not to see corruption ; but the bodies of all men do see corruption : consequently, this declaration does not relate to the bodies of men in general. Probably, then, most readers will prefer, to the application of the words adopted by our adversa- ries, the application of them by the Apostle Peter: "Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne ; he, seeing this before, spake of the Resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption." j Such was the force of this reasoning, that three thousand souls were converted by it : but the argument was a mere sophism, and they who yielded to it were not converted but entrapped, if, as some would pretend, the words are as true of David, and of every other mortal, as of the Lord Jesus Christ. A text more plausibly applied to this question is cited from Daniel; where also, though it is not so obviously remote from the subject, a little reflection may convince any one, that the prophet is not speaking of the resurrection of the body. He says, " And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." J Now most people believe, that, whether the body rises again or not, the resurrection extends to all whose bodies are deposited in the dust : yet this passage only says, that many of them that sleep in the dust shall awake : and this difficulty is so insurmountable, that the more candid of the advocates for the resurrection of the body acknowledge that this passage cannot relate to the subject. If we are to abide strictly by the letter in the words sleeping in the dust, we must abide by the letter in the word many : hence, if we make the passage say, that many of the bodies which lie in the dust shall be raised, we make it say as positively, that some of them shall not be raised : and thus we involve the whole in contradiction. Dr. Hody, who was so anxious to find evidence for the resurrection of the body that he often adduces such as is extremely equivocal, nevertheless considers that this passage of Daniel is best referred to the restoration of the Jews, or of the church, being excluded from reference to a general * Ps. xvi. 9, 10. t Acts ii. 29, 30, 31. * Ch. xii 2. THE EESTJKBECTION. 43 resurrection, by the introduction of the word many : and his argu- ments are well worth notice. " I most freely acknowledge," he says, " that the word many makes this text extremely difficult. I know what expositors say ; but I am not satisfied with any thing that I have hitherto met with. Some tell us that many is sometimes used in the Scriptures to signify all : — but this does not clear the difficulty. For there is a great difference between many, and many of. All they that sleep in the dust are many ; but many of them that sleep in the dust cannot be said to be all they that sleep in the dust. — Many of does plainly except some." — Being still, however, reluctant to give up this passage as a proof of his favourite sentiment, Dr. Hody acknowledges, that as the text could not be accommodated to the doctrine, he was once disposed to accommodate the doctrine to the text. "I was once," says he, "inclined to believe, and the fancy was grounded upon this text, that there may be some who shall not be raised up at all at the last day : and who were they, think you, who I fancied were not to rise ? Such heathens as lived morally well, and according to the light that is given them. I was loth to rank them among the miserable ; and I could not see how they could be saved. I was willing therefore to believe that there might be some middle way contrived by Providence ; and that was annihilation." An admirable expedient, indeed ! which at once relieves the mind from the pain attending the horrid notion so generally prevalent, that nothing but eternal fire is reserved even for the best of that immense portion of mankind who have not been visited by the light of the gospel, and converts this text of Daniel into good proof of the resur- rection of the body ! Dr. Hody, however, was too honest to be satisfied with such a subterfuge ; wherefore we will leave it to those who are not so candid, or so scrupulous. To sleep, and to sleep in the dust, are phrases belonging to that peculiar style of language in which the Scriptures are written, and which is framed from the correspondence, analogy, or mutual relation, established by the Creator between natural tilings and spiritual; which is such, that the former regularly answer to the latter, and afford exact images for giving them expression ; as I have endea- voured to explain in a distinct work on that subject. In this style of language, to sleep, and to sleep in the dust, mean, to be in a merely natural and sensual state of life ; and to awake from this state to everlasting life, is to arise to a state of truly spiritual life, accompanied with eternal happiness ; while to awake to shame and everlasting contempt, is to pass indeed into a spiritual state, but such a one as belongs to infernal spirits, accompanied with eternal misery. Thus to sleep in the dust, and to awake thence, have no reference whatever to the unconscious dead body, but to the man, of whom the dead body no longer forms any part. Hence we read, both of the wise 44 THE REST/EEECTION. and the foolish virgins, that while the hridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slejit ; and surely no one ever referred the expressions, in this instance, to the body in the grave. So when the Apostle, paraphrasing the prophet, says, 11 Awake, thou that steepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light ; " * he certainly does not allude to the sleep of the grave, or address the dead bodies there, but calls those who are slumbering in a merely natural state, and who are spiritually dead, to arise to a state of spiritual light and life. Thus also, when Isaiah exclaims, " Shake thyself from the dust ; arise, and sit down, 0 Jerusalem ; "t none understand the call to be addressed to the dead bodies of the Jewish people mouldering in the dust of the grave. Equally unfounded is the application of this prophecy of Daniel, respecting them that sleep in the dust, to dead carcases in the tomb. In the preceding paragraph I have explained the above text of Daniel according to its spiritual sense, because I am of opinion that it really does relate, as they who apply it to the resurrection of the body suppose, to the last judgment; and it is only in its spiritual sense that it refers to that event. But they who apply it to the resurrection of the body take it in its merest literal sense. That it has also, subordinately, a literal or natural sense, I readily admit : but in that sense it certainly relates neither to the resurrection of the body nor to the last judgment. Let any one examine the context, and then decide whether, in the literal sense, it can possibly refer to the last judgment ; if not, neither can it, even in that sense, refer to the resurrection of the body. The preceding chapter is occupied with an account of the wars between the king of the south and the king of the north ; and these were understood, by all the ancient com- mentators, to be the Greek kings of Egypt and of Syria : indeed, so well do the predictions apply to the affairs of those princes and times, that the celebrated philosopher and opposer of Christianity, Porphyry, made the very exactness of the prophecy an argument against its truth, pretending that it must have been written after the events bad come to pass. Thus, according to the ancient interpreters, as may be seen in Prideaux and others, the eleventh chapter ends with the death of Antiochus Epiphanes, whom most of them regarded as a type of Antichrist. The death of Antiochus took place in the 164th year before the Christian Era ; and in the year preceding, Judas Maccabseus, having delivered his country from the power of her oppressors, purified and repaired the temple, and founded the feast of the Dedication ; which I mention, because the observance of this feast by the Saviour himself (John x. 22) seems to include a recog- nition of the importance, and indeed of the divine origin, of the * Epb. v. 14. + Isa. liL 2. THE RESURRECTION. 45 reform and restoration effected by Judas. Now the eleventh chapter of Daniel having ended with the death of Antioehus, the twelfth chapter begins with declaring, that the Jews should experience a deliverance at the same time : " And at that time" it reads, " shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth up for the children of thy [Daniel's] people [the Jews]: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time : and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book." This certainly appears very suitable, in its literal sense, to the deliverance which the Jews obtained, after the dreadful oppressions they had previously under- gone, by the instrumentality of Judas Maccabaaus, co-incident as this was with the end of the reign of Antioehus : accordingly, this part of the prophecy, also, is thus applied by the ancient interpreters. Well then ; in the outward sense, the passage respecting them that sleep in the dust must be a figurative description of some of the circumstances which then took place ; for it immediately follows the words last cited. In this application, doubtless, they that slept in the dust, were they who had submitted to their heathen masters and conformed to the manners and worship of their oppressors, as the latter rigorously required ; they who awoke to everlasting life, were they who sincerely returned to, and assisted in re-establishing, the worship of the true God, and thus obtained everlasting honour in this world and happiness in the next : and they who awoke to shame and everlasting contempt, were they who, having become heathens in heart as well as in manners, opposed the efforts of their countrymen to obtain emancipation, and thus incurred everlasting disgrace both here and hereafter. But certainly, no bodies of Jews deceased then arose, either to promote or oppose the noble labours of Judas. In just conformity then with the ancient scheme of literal inter- pretation, this passage can have nothing to do with the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. I\or do the schemes of literal interpretation which many recent expositors have substituted for the ancient one, make this text at all more applicable to that doctrine. It has become the fashion to explain the latter part of the eleventh chapter in reference to events of modern times, and to read, in the first verse of the twelfth, the promise of a restoration of the Jews which is yet future, but which many believe to be immediately at hand; and the prediction respecting them that sleep in the dust, is then necessarily understood as figuratively describing the state of the Jews, and their conduct, at the period of this expected restoration. It is expressly so applied by Mr. Faber and others. But certainly, though the Jews themselves suppose that, when they return to Canaan, the bodies of all their 46 THE RESURRECTION. deceased countrymen will arise and go with them, no Christian concurs in so extravagant an expectation. Thus, upon no consistent scheme of interpretation whatever, can this verse be made to relate to an actual revival of dead bodies. We now pass, for the present, from the evidence of the Old Testa- ment to that of the New : and though we shall here find explicit documents on the subject of the resurrection, we shall find Mr. Locke's assertion to be true, that it, likewise, never speaks of the resurrection of the same [or the material] body. The first passage to be hence noticed, is one which has been much relied on by the advocates of the resurrection of the body ; and yet it is attended with particulars, in itself and in its context, which make it utterly irreconcilable with that doctrine. "Marvel not at this : for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth ; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." * The specific reference of these words we shall probably see when we come to consider the subject of the Last Judgment ; but that they do not relate to any resurrection of deceased bodies, to take place many hundreds, probably many thousands of years after the words were uttered, is evident from this circumstance ; that the great event referred to, whatever may be its true nature, is spoken of in the present tense, — the hour is coming, — indicating that the event was immediately about to take place. This is the usual import of the verb to come when used in the present tense, both in common language and in the language of Scripture. If the Divine Speaker had been referring to an event so distant as experience has now proved that the resurrection of the body, if ever it takes place, must then have been, he would not have said, "the hour is coming," but, "the hour will come;'''' as when he says, in Luke, "The days will come when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man :" — when he says, " the hour Cometh, or is coming," he certainly means, is presently at hand.f But if the mode of expression be not itself deemed sufficient to put this beyond all doubt, all doubt must vanish when the parallel passage, three verses previous, is consulted, of which this is only a more detailed repetition. The Lord there says, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God : and they that hear shall live." % Certainly, " the dead," " all that are in the graves," — cannot mean, literally, corpses in the tomb ; for all these have never yet heard the voice of the Son of God, lived, and come forth ; although the Lord declares that the hour of which he was speaking, when this should take * Jc'.n v. 28. t See, for instance, John iv. 21 and 23. $ Ver. 25. THE EESTJRRECTION. 17 place, then was. Whatever then may be intended by these divine declarations, we here have conclusive proof, that they do not announce the resurrection of the body. The language of the Divine Speaker must be figurative ; in fact, it is that of analogy or correspondence. This is further evident from the next verse preceding, which intro- duces the subject : " Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and belie veth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life." * Here, those who are in a merely natural state, are spoken of as being in a state of death, notwithstanding they are living by natural life in the world. This evinces, that it is not of natural death that the Divine Teacher is speaking; consequently, "the dead," mentioned directly afterwards, are not they who are naturally dead, and "all that are in the graves" are not the dead bodies in the tomb.f But it not only is evident, upon comparing the context, that "all that are in the graves," cannot mean all dead bodies, but it is shown by Mr. Locke, in the place cited above, that the words themselves, could they be separated from the context, cannot, without the greatest inconsistencies, be applied to such a resurrection. It is to be observed that his antagonist, Stillingfieet, bishop of Worcester, though contending for the resurrection of the same body, had found it necessary, with all other advocates of that opinion, to define the same body not to be the same individual particles of matter as were united at the point of death, but the same individual particles of matter as were sometime or other, during man's life here, vitally united to his soul. To prove the resurrection of the same body, he quotes the above text. " From whence," says Mr. Locke, " your Lordship argues, That these words, ' all that are in the graves,' relate to no other substance than what was united to the soul in life ; because a different substance cannot be said to be in the graves and to come out of them. Which words of your Lordship's, if they prove any thing, prove that the soul too is lodged in the grave, and raised out of it the last day. For your Lordship says, Can a different substance be said to be in the graves and to come out of them ? So that, according to this interpretation of these words of our Saviour ; No other sub- stance being raised but what hears his voice ; and no other substance hearing his voice but what, being called, comes out of the grave; and no other substance coming out of the grave but what was in the grave; any one must conclude, that the soul, unless it be in the grave, will make no part of the person that is raised ; — unless, as * Ver. 24. t See tbe above explanation of this text, and of the use in Scripture of the expression comcth, or is coming, fully established in "Strictures," &c, Int. Rep. for 1835, pp. 058—663. 48 THE RESURRECTION. your Lordship argues against me, you can make it out, that a sub- stance which never teas in the grave may come out of it : or that the soul is no substance. But," adds Mr. L., "setting aside the sub- stance of the soul, another thing that -will make any one doubt whether this your interpretation of our Saviour's words be necessary to be received as their true sense, is, That it will not be very easily reconciled to your raying, you do not mean, by the same body, the same individual particles which were united at the point of death. And yet, by this interpretation of our Saviour's words, you can mean no other particles but such as were united at the point of death ; because you mean no other substance but what comes out of the grave, and no substance, no particles, come out, you say, but what were in the grave ; and I think your Lordship will not say, that the particles that were separated from the body by perspiration, before the point of death, were laid up in the grave. But," Mr. L. adds further, "your Lordship, I find, has an answer to this; viz. That by comparing this icith other places, you find that the words [of our Saviour above quoted] are to be understood of the substance of the body to which the soul was united, and not of tlvjse individual par- ticles that are in the grave at the resurrection. — But methinks this last sense of our Saviour's words given by your Lordship, wholly overturns the sense which you have given of them above, where from these words you press the belief of the resurrection of the same bodv by this strong argument; that a substance could not, tipon hearing the voice of Christ, come out of the grave, which was never in the grave. There (as far as I can understand your words) your Lordship argues, that our Saviour's words must be understood of the particles in the grave, unless, as your Lordship says, one can make it out, that a substance which never was in the grave, can come out of it. And here your Lordship expressly says, That our Saviour's words are to be understood of the substance of that body to which the soul was [at any time] united, and not of those individual particles that are in the grave. "Which, put together, seems to me to say, That our Saviour's words are to be understood of those particles only that are in the grave, and not of those particles only that are in the grave, but of others also which have at any time been vitally united to the soul, but never were in the grave." Mr. Locke has certainly here involved his eminent opponent in inextricable in- consistencies : nor can such inconsistencies be escaped by any one, who applies the above text to the resurrection of the same, or material body. The next quotation formally brought forward is the Lord's dis- course with Martha (John xi. 23 — 26) briefly noticed above : but how directly this contradicts the notion of a future resurrection of the body, instead of confirming it, we have already seen. It is true that, THE RESURRECTION. 49 to strain it to this purpose, an accuser would translate the last clause, " shall not die for ever" instead of :< shall never die ; " but every one who is acquainted with the idiom of the New Testament, knows that the words which, literally translated, are " shall not die for ever," mean precisely the same as the English phrase, shall never die. By this phrase, therefore, our translators have honestly rendered them, notwithstanding they, also, had a predilection for the notion, that everlasting life is to have a great chasm in it. As Dr. Doddridge justly observes, in his note upon this passage, " To render the words, — shall not die for ever, or eternally, is both obscuring and enervating their sense, and (as I have elsewhere shown, notes on John iv. 14, and John viii. 51, 52) is grounded on a criticism which cannot agree with the use of the phrase in parallel passages." The words expressly declare, that he who liveth and believeth in the Lord shall never die. Thus by this divine declaration, the change in the state of existence made by putting oft the body is treated as unworthy of any regard ; it is represented as not even making a break in the course of existence ; and we may be satisfied that the Divine Giver of everlasting life does not mock us with empty words, and call that everlasting life, or living for ever, which is presently to be discontinued, and, after a lapse of thousands of years, is to begin again ! Next we are presented with these words : " And as they spake xrato the people, the priests, and the captains of the people, and the Sad- ducees, came upon them, being grieved that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead."* No allusion, here, we see, to any general resurrection of dead bodies : Indeed, this passage only refers to the resurrection of Jesus himself; for according to the original it is, — " and preached in Jesus the re- surrection from the dead ; " — that is, that in the person of Jesus a resurrection from the dead had taken place ; in other words, that Jesus had risen from the dead : which certainly constituted the main burthen of the first preaching of the apostles. — Again: "Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered him (Paul). And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods : because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection."! Still nothing about the resurrection of the body : indeed, this text also seems only to refer to the resurrection of Jesus. — " And have hope towards God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust. — Except it be for this one voice, that I (Paul) cried standing among them, touching the resurrection of the dead I am called in question among you this day." J Still not a word about dead bodies. — " Women received their dead raised to life * Acts iv. 1, 2. t Ch. xvii. 18. X Ch. xxiv. 15. 21. 50 THE RESURRECTION. again : and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance ; that they might obtain a better resurrection."* Here the dead whom the women received again certainly were restored in their bodies ; they not only rose again in their bodies, but, as the necessary consequence of such a resurrection, they also died again in their bodies: but they hoped for a better resurrection, that is, better than the resurrection of the body. — "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten lis again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Here, again, no resurrection is spoken of, but that of Jesus Christ. "But the rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand years were finished : this is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection."! This passage refers to events that were to take place in the spiritual world, not in the natural, at the time of the last judgment, wherefore I shall consider it when I come to treat of that subject. At present I will only cite i little more of it, which the refuter who quotes it has judiciously suppressed, because, if suffered to appear, it would take the whole passage completely out of his list of proofs, and add it to ours. The preceding verse says : " I saw, the souls " (mind this — the souls, not the bodies; — "I saw the souls) of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands ; and they (not the bodies, mind, but they, the pronoun referring to the souls before mentioned as its antecedent,) lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead,'''' &c. Here then we find that these souls are called the dead, as having passed by death out of the natural world ; as well as for another reason that will be mentioned here- after: and as, while souls are mentioned, not a syllable is said of any bodies, or of the resurrection of the body, it surely is a palpable violation of the sacred text to apply this part of it to confirm such a notion. The last passage which our present adversary adduces against us is this. " For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God : and the dead in Christ shall rise first." I wonder he did not add the next verse, which appears still stronger : for the Apostle goes on to say : "Then we which are alive, and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: " J But I suppose the reason why this quotation is declined was, be- cause the language is so evidently figurative, that scarcely any can * IIeb. xi. 35. t Rev. xx. 5, 6. £ 1 Thes. iv. 16, 1". THE RESURRECTION. 51 suppose that it is meant to be literally understood : and because, also, the Apostle here undeniably speaks according to certain mis- taken notions, which prevailed in the first ages. Ihe fact is, that this text does not so properly belong to the subject of the Resurrec- tion, as to that of the Second Coming of the Lord ; and as, accord- ing to what has been shown in the preceding Section, the true nature of the Second Coming of the Lord was not at that time plainly revealed, therefore the Apostles never speak of it but in that pro- phetical style in which it had been predicted by the Lord himself, and which cannot be understood till spiritually deciphered.* Thus we have seen, that all the primitive Christians, and the Apostles themselves, believed that it was to take place in that first age ; and the language which Paul here twice uses, — " we that are alive and remain," — evinces, that he, at the time of his so writing, entertained the expectation of living to see it. This, experience has proved, was a mistaken opinion altogether ; yet with a reference to this mistaken opinion, assumed as true, all the Apostle's remarks are here framed. The Thessalonian Christians expected to live to witness the Lord's second coming, and then to be admitted into a kingdom of superla- tive glory, in a new beaven and earth to be created for the purpose after the destruction of the former : and they grieved for their de- ceased friends, fearing that none could enjoy the happiness of the Lord's new kingdom, but they who lived to behold its establish- ment. Assuming then this expectation of the Lord's appearing, in this manner, and in the life-time of that generation, to be true, the Apostle applies himself to remove their gloomy apprehensions re- specting their departed friends. He opens the subject with saying, " But I would not have ye to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them, which are asleep, that ye sorrow not. even as others which have no hope : for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him."f Then he pro- ceeds, " For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord " [mean- ing that he here repeats what the Lord himself had declared, Matt, xxiv. 30, 31], "that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent [be beforehand with, or have any advantage over] them which are asleep. "J The two verses cited above next follow ; and they are purely a paraphrase of the Lord's own statement respecting his second coming, with the introduction of a clause respecting those who should be deceased, in regard to whom the Thessalonians were uneasy. The Lord had said, "They shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power * See above, p. 7 — 17 ; and I beg the reader to bear in mind what was there advanced, as the subject is of great importance, and what is here stated was there, I trust I may say, incontrovertibly proved. + Ver. 13, 14. X Ver. 15. 52 THE KESTJItKECTION'. and great glory; and he shall send his angels -with a great soiind of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."* The Apostle says, " For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, ■with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God : and tho dead in Christ shall rise first" [or "shall rise before," or "pre- viously ; " as is the sense of the word vpmov in Matt. v. 24, xii. 29, Mark ix. 11, 12, John xv. 18, xix. 39, 2 Thes. ii. 3, 1 Tim. iii. 10, &c] : then we which are alive and remain shall he caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air." Here, observe, that no raising of dead bodies is mentioned or alluded to. "Them that sleep in Jesus," it is said, "will God bring with him," not, " will raise them from the grave to meet him." As is well observed on this text by the celebrated Dr. Bwight: "Who are those whom God will bring with Christ at this time ? Certainly, not the bodies of the saints." Dr. Dwight indeed adds, "They [the bodies] will be raised from the grave, and cannot be brought with Christ." But he only takes for granted that the bodies will be raised, from his preconceived notions: the Apostle says no such thing. But he comes to the right conclusion: "The only answer therefore is, he will bring with him ' the spirits of just men made perfect.' "+ Thus nothing can with certainty he here gathered from the Apostle's language, but that, as has been shown before, neither the manner nor the time of the Lord's second coming were then revealed ? Hence, with respect to the manner of it, we find the Apostle repeating, without explanation, the symbolic language in which the Lord had foretold it ; and with respect to the time of it, we find him countenancing a most palpable error. Can any doctrine, then, with safety be drawn from his statement, beyond this; that they who " sleep in Jesus," actually are " with him," — that is, that they are awake or alive towards him, though they are asleep towards us; or "that the dead in Christ were to rise" before his second coming, even though this was then daily expected, — in other words, that they rise in and with Christ as soon as they die here ? And even if we understand as literally as we can the Apostle's words respecting the dead in Christ rising first, and we (which must now be changed into they) which are alive and remain being caught up into the air, still it will not follow that dead material bodies are thus to rise, or that living material bodies are to be thus transported ; for, when speaking in a similar manner in another place, to be considered presently, he says, that "we shall be changed" — shall change our material bodies for spiritual ones, — " in a moment, in the twinkling * Matt. xxiv. 30, 31. t Serm. 1G4. THE BESUKHECTIOJi', 53 of an eye ; " evidently teaching that, happen how it may, we are to be dispossessed of that " hesh and blood," which, he affirms in the same place, " caunot inherit the kingdom of God," and which are so little suited for Hying in the air. SECTION IIL THE RESURRECTION. PART II. Other Texts, commonly regarded as adverse to the True Doctrine, considered. In the First Part of this Section I have considered all the texts, cited as opposed to the View of the Resurrection which we receive as the truth of Scripture, in the work which I have taken as my guide in the composition of this Appeal. In making this remark, however, I except the famous fifteenth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians ; which, regarding it as strongly affirming our view of the subject, I reserve till I enter on the consideration of texts by which that view is established. But first I will request the attention of the candid and reflecting, while I make the present branch of the subject more complete, by noticing all the remaining texts, both of the Old Testament and the New, which are commonly referred to the Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body. In the preceding Part of this Section, among other texts from the Old Testament, I have examined the passage of Daniel, ch. xii. 2, which says, " And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and ever- lasting contempt: " and it has been shown, that " upon no consistent scheme of interpretation whatever, can this verse be made to relate to an actual revival of dead bodies." This image of a revival from the grave, is also used, by other prophets, to express the restoration of the Jews from a state of depression to a state of prosperity ; and as such passages are some- times improperly cited, by the advocates of the resurrection of the body, in proof of that doctrine, we will here briefly pass them under review. We will first notice Ezekiel's vision of dry bones, because, though inattentive readers are apt to suppose that it relates to a general resurrection of dead bodies, and some who ought to know better frequently apply it to that doctrine, it nevertheless explains itself §4 TUE KESURKECTION. so clearly, that it may serve as a key to all other passages in which similar images are used. Ezekiel was one of those, who, with Jehoiaehin the king and a great body of the people, were carried captives to Babylon at the first capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchad- nezzar. So long, however, as Jerusalem remained standing, and under the government of Jehoiachin's successor, Zedekiah, the captives in Babylon entertained hopes of a return, and of the restoration of the Jewish state to its pristine glory ; but when Jerusalem was utterly destroyed, and the principal part of the people who remained was likewise carried into captivity, at the second invasion by Nebuchad- nezzar, they abandoned themselves to despair, and regarded all prospect of a restoration as utterly hopeless : which they expressed, in the figurative language to which they were accustomed, by saying, " Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost; we are cut off, for our parts." To counteract this despair, Ezekiel is favoured with the vision of dry bones. " The hand of the Lord," says he, " was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones ; — and behold there were very many in the open valley ; and lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, 0 Lord God, thou knowest." The bones accordingly are clothed with flesh and skin, " and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceeding great army." (chap, xxxvii. 1 — 10.) If the reader goes no further, he may conclude that this vision is intended to teach the doctrine of the resurrection of the body ; but the prophet, or rather the Lord by the prophet, immediately declares, that, the bones were symbols, not of actually deceased men, but of the Israelites in their then state of extreme affliction and depression, when they were held captive in the country of their enemies as dead bones in the grave ; and that the revivification of the dry bones is a symbol of the certain revival of the Jewish state, by the restoration of the people to their own land ; which, as is well known, took place accordingly, after their captivity had lasted seventy years. For thus the prophet con- tinues: "Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel : behold they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost ; we are cut off, for our parts. Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God : Behold, 0 my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up oat of your graves, and briny you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, 0 my people, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall put my spirit within you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord" (ver. 11 — 14). In no other part of Scripture is so much said respecting the opening of graves, and bringing up out of graves: THE EESTJKRECTION. 55 but, most evidently, this language does not here mean that there shall be any resurrection of actually dead bodies : consequently it does not necessarily (perhaps I might say, it necessarily docs not) mean such a resurrection, when it is used elsewhere. Having thus obtained so distinct a clew to the signification of these images, we may easily understand them when they occur in other places. Isa. xxvi. 19, as it stands in the common translation, appears more in favour of the resurrection of the body than any other text either of the Old or New Testament. " Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust : for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out her dead." But for the main strength of this passage in reference to this argument, — its seeming mention of the dead body of Jesus Christ, as that together with which the other dead are to arise, — ■ which would destroy its reference to any restoration of the Jews, — it is entirely indebted to the ingenuity of the translators ; which they in fact acknowledge, by printing the words together with in Italic characters, to indicate that nothing answering to them is to be found in the original. Indeed, they have herein departed likewise from all the ancient versions. The chapter consists of a song of praise for the delivery of the church and people of God, and the destruction of the enemies which had tyrannised over them : and, as in the preceding- examples, to rise from the dead, and awake from the dust, are used as images to express their restoration from the extreme of depression. Of their enemies it is said in ver. 14 ; " They arc dead, they shall not live ; they are deceased, they shall not rise : therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish : " so that if the 19th verse did relate to the resurrection of the body, and could prove that the bodies of the people of God are to rise from the grave, the 14th verse would prove that their enemies are never to rise again at all, but that, when they die, they perish altogether : which alone evinces that the resurrection, either with the body or without it, is not the subject treated of. It is to be observed also, that the word (rephaim) translated deceased, in ver. 14, always refers to such as exercise a tyrannical power, and is the same as that trans- lated the dead at the end of ver. 19: which proves that the dead whom the earth shall cast out, mentioned at the end of that verse, are not the same as the dead who shall live, mentioned in the beginning of it : thus for the earth to cast out her dead, does not mean the resurrection of the dead, but the utter and final dispersion of their dust ; so that, if the resurrection were the subject treated of, here also would be mention of some who are never to rise again at all. The true sense of the verse is given by Bishop Lowth, and is as follows : — 50 TIIE EESTORECTIOX. " Thy dead shall live ; my deceased, tliey shall arise : Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust ! For thy dew is as the dew of the dawn ; But the earth shall cast forth, as an abortion, the deceased tyrants." And the bishop gives this note upon it: " The deliverance of the people of God from a state of the lowest depression, is explained by images plainly taken from the resurrection of the dead. [As an example, he here refers to the passage of Ezekiel considered above, lie then adds] And this deliverance is expressed with a manifest opposition to what is said above, ver. 14, of the great lords and tyrants under whom they had groaned : — ' They are dead, they shall not live ; They are deceased tyrants, they shall not rise :' that they should be destroyed utterly, and should never be restored to their former power and glory." Plain enough, then, I apprehend it is, that this passage does not, cannot, teach the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. Yet' Bishop Lowth, after having so candidly and clearly given its true sense, would fain infer the resurrection of the body from it ! To put the reader in possession of the whole of his sentiments, and as an extraordinary example of the power of prejudice over even the clearest understandings, I subjoin the remark with which he concludes his note. ' ' It appears from hence, that the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead [meaning, it would seem, of the body] was at that time a popular and common doctrine : for an image which is assumed in order to express or represent any thing in the way of allegory or metaphor, whether poetical or prophetical, must be an image com- monly known and understood ; otherwise it will not answer the purpose for which it is assumed." Is not this saying, that nothing must be used as an image in poetical or prophetical language, which is not at the same time a matter of fact in common language ? Might he not as well have said, because the Lord declares to him that over- cometh, in the Revelation, "I will give him the morning star," — " It appears from hence, that the belief that the saints will be pre- sented with stars was at that time a common and popular belief? " — or, because John says that he saw a woman clothed with the sun, — " It appears from hence, that to suppose that a woman might be clothed with the sun was at that time a common and popular suppo- sition ? " &c. The cases are exactly parallel, and one inference is as just as the other. There are two other passages commonly cited from the Old Testa- ment in proof of the resurrection of the body; but they are of precisely the same character as the above, and need not therefore detain us. The first is in Hosea vi. 2: "After two days will he revive us; in the third day he will raise us up ; and we shall live in his sight." THE RESURRECTION . 57 But here no mention is made of the body or the grave ; and the pre- ceding verse shows that it does not relate in any way to the literally dead: "Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn and he will heal us ; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up." Now it would be ridiculous to exhort dead bodies to return unto the Lord. The other passage is in the same prophet, ch. xiii. 14. " I will ransom them from the power of the grave ; I will redeem them from death : 0 death, I will bo thy plagues ; 0 grave, I will be thy destruction : repentance shall be hid from mine eyes." This is spoken of Ephraim ; and an examination of the context will show that it can have no reference to the return of dead bodies from the tomb. Thus, in the words of Dr. Faber, "to express the political revivification of the house of Israel, Hosea, like Isaiah and Ezekiel, uses the allegory of a resurrection." I have confined myself, in my remarks on the above passages, to their external or literal sense only ; because if they do not refer to the resurrection of the body in that sense, they evidently cannot in any other: but we are satisfied, that unless the prophecies contained a spiritual sense also, treating of matters far more important than the affairs of the Israelites and other nations, they could form no part of the Word of God. As, in their external sense, such passages as the above treat of a political, so, in their spiritual sense, they must treat of a spiritual resurrection. To pass to another subject. The translation of Enoch and Elijah is often referred to as supporting the notion of the final resurrection of the material body ; for they are supposed to have been taken into heaven with their natural bodies, not having passed, in the ordinary manner, through the gate of death. All that is recorded of Enoch, is this: "And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: and Enoch walked with God, after he begat Methuselah, three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. And Enoch walked with God : and he was not, for God took him " (Gen. v. 21 — 24). This mode of relating the oc- currence is so general and indistinct, that it is impossible to determine from it, even supposing that the history is to be literally understood, whether Enoch took his natural body into heaven or not. But the translation of Elijah is more particularly related: if then it shall appear, that from the translation of Elijah no inference can be drawn in favour of the resurrection of the material body, it will hardly be affirmed, that any such inference can be drawn from the less distinctly recorded translation of Enoch. Quite evident, then, it is, that, whatever became of Elijah's material body, it was not carried up into heaven : for quite evident it is, though the circumstance is generally overlooked, that the translation of Elijah was net seen by Elisha with the eyes of his body, but with 58 THE RESURRECTION. those of his spirit: .on which mode of vision, customary with the prophets, we shall have to offer some remarks in a subsequent Section. Elisha had asked, that a double portion of his master's spirit might be upon him; to which Elijah answered, "Thou hast asked a hard thing : nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee ; but if not, it shall not be so " (2 Kings, ii. 10). Elijah knew that the miraculous event about to take place would be imperceptible to any man in his natural state, and could not be beheld by Elisha, unless, by special divine favour, the sight of his spirit were opened to hehold it: the granting then to Elisha of the favour of the opening of his spiritual sight, was to be to him the earnest of the granting to him likewise of the other favour which he had requested. This therefore was done, and is distinctly recorded. "And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appear jd a chariot of fire and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder ; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven" (ver. 11). Certain it is that this chariot and horses of fire did not belong to the natural world, but that they were a spiritual appearance, and, consequently, not visible to the sight of a man, unless he were put into a spiritual state proper for beholding it. That Elisha then was put into such a state, is intimated by its being immediately added, " And Elisha saw it ; " — that is, saw the whole transaction, — both the fiery chariot and horses and the transit of Elijah; — "and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." This vision having been granted him, his return into a natural state, in which objects belonging to the spiritual world vanished from his sight, is also marked, by its being further added, " And he saw him no more" (ver. 12). As then it is evident that Elisha beheld the whole transaction, not with the eyes of his body but with the eyes of his spirit, it foil )ws, that it was the spirit only of Elijah, and not his body, which in that state he saw. Had he beheld the ascension of Elijah with his natural sight, as we behold an aeronaut ascend in a balloon, there could have been no room for the intimation, that it was by special divine favour that he was enabled to see the vision : but as there is such an inti- mation; as, likewise, it is certain that the chariot and horses of tire, could not, like a balloon, be beheld with the natural sight, it becomes oertaiu that the person who was thus seen to ascend was a spiritual, not a material aeronaut, — was not the body of Elijah, but his spirit. But is it asked, What then became of his body ? Suppose we ask in return, If he -soared through the air to heaven, considered, as this supposition requires, as a place beyond the region of the stars, what became of the life of his body ? We know, from the experience of those who have climbed lofty mountains or ascended in balloons, THE RESURRECTION. 59 that the air becomes so rare at the height of but a very few miles from the earth's surface as to make respiration difficult, and that, on continuing; to ascend, an animated body would soon come into the state of an animal in an exhausted rec iver, and must inevitably expire ; and we know also, that the temperature at the same time becomes so cold, that the fluids of the body would speedily be arrested, and the animal frame become a solid mass of ice. If then it is not immediately evident what became of Elijah's body, it is sufficiently evident what became of the life of it ; and if we still suppose that it went to heaven by this route, we must suppose that it accomplished the voyage, not as an animated body, but as a corpse. But does not the Sacred Record itself indicate what became of the body, when it in- forms us, that the immediate agent in Elijah's removal was a whirl- wind, or, according to the more extensive signification of the original expression, a violent storm? We read in Ps. lxxxiii. 14, 15; "As the Jire burneth the wood, and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire ; so persecute them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm ; " where the word in the original for storm is the same as is here rendered a whirlwind ; and where an action is as-- cribed to it like that of fire and name : Are we not then to infer, that it includes the action of lightning as well as of wind, — the extreme of commotion or agitation (which is the radical idea of the word) in all the elements, — all, in short, to which we usually apply the word storm ? Place then any man in the very centre of such a commotion of the elements as we sometimes behold ; thus expose him to the action of the electric or galvanic fluid in its utmost energy ; — and any philosopher will inform us, not only that his body would be instantly deprived of its life, or that it would be torn to atoms, — for this would be the result of a comparatively slight action of that mighty solvent, — but that it would be completely decomposed and resolved into its elements. When therefore the Scripture informs us, (ver. 1), that "the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind or storm;" and afterwards (ver. 11) that he did so; it tells us, by a euphuism, that Elijah died ; as Aaron and Moses, also by divine appointment, each went up into a mountain to die (Num. xx. 25, &c. ; Deut. xxxii. 49, &c.) : and it sufficiently explains why his body could not afterwards be found. It appears then that the Sacred Record itself, when attended to, answers the question respecting what became of Elijah's body. But were it otherwise: that his body was not transported into heaven would still be certain, not only from what has before been urged, — from the impossibility of the thing in itself, as being contrary to th<> order of the universe, which does not admit a grosser thing to enter into a purer, — and from the contrariety of the supposition to the explicit declarations, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom F 2 60 THE KESUBRECTION. of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption ; but also, from the authentic testimony we have of the state of Elijah in the other world. Moses, we know, certainly, was not translated, with his body, into heaven; for of him we read, that he was "buried in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor" (Deut. xxxiv. 6). But when Jesus was transfigured, (before, as might easily be shown, the spiritual sight of his disciples,) it is said, "And behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias ; who appeared in glory" (Luke ix. 30, 31). Here, both are called men, — Moses, as well as Elias ; both, too, appeared in glory, — Elias as well as Moses : then wherein did Moses differ from Elias ? Does not this relation prove, that the spirit is the man ; that this spirit has a spiritual body of its own ; that Moses had this, notwithstanding his natural body had been buried and had never been resuscitated ; and that Elias had no more, notwithstanding the Scripture does not so explicitly relate how he was divested of his natural body ? Here is clear proof that Moses, without his natural body, was a man in glory and exactly in the same state as Elijah: how then can it be supposed that Elijah took into heaven with him, what, it is certain, Moses did not? Thus, instead of proving the resurrection of the body, the history of Elijah completely disproves it, and demonstrates that man is a perfect man without it. Having now examined such texts of the Old Testament as are usually cited in proof of the resurrection of the body, I will here also take from Dr. Hody, and briefly notice, those texts of the New Tes- tament, commonly relied on by the advocates of that doctrine, which have not been considered in the preceding Part of this Section. Matt. v. 29, 30. "And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee : for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee : for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." If the body here literally means the body, of necessity the ritjht eye literally means the right eye, and the right hand the right hand. But who ever dreamed that entrance into heaven could be facilitated by plucking out an eye or cutting off a hand ? And do they who gather from it, that all who go to hell go thither with their whole material body entire, gather from it also the inseparable counterpart of such a notion, — that many who go to heaven go thither one-eyed and maimed (for so the parallel passage, Mark ix. 43, 45, 47, gives it: " It is better for thee to enter into life maimed, — halt, — and with one eye, than having two hands, — feet, — and eyes, to be cast into h.'ll-fire ")? Every one sees that this part of the statement is not to be literally understood ; — how then can they run into such an inconsistency as to abide THE EESUEBECTION. 61 literally by the other ? Evidently, the offending eye and hand ai'e mentioned to denote certain perverse propensities of the mind or spirit, from which alone all the organs of the body act : and as cer- tain organs of the body are thus put for certain disorderly functions of the mind or spirit, which is the real man, to carry on the figure, and to avoid the incongruity of a mixed metaphor, the whole body is naturally, and according to the strict laws of composition, put for the whole mind or spirit, and thus for the whole man as he exists after death. Matt. x. 28. " Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul ; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." If there were no text which explained " how the dead are raised, and with what bodies they do come," it might perhaps from this single text, be inferred, though it could not be proved, that the material body would be raised again ; but when the nature of the resurrectiou-body is, as we shall see presently, so expli- citly denned ; when we are so positively assured " that flesh and blood cannot enter into the kingdom of God," nor, by consequence, into the eternal world at all, but that "that which is raised is a spiritual body ;" there cannot be a doubt but that it is the spiritual body which is here intended. If it be objected, that this makes the body last mentioned, as liable to be destroyed in hell, different from the body first mentioned, as liable to be killed here : I answer ; that it is a universal rule of the logicians, often resorted to by the commentators on Scripture, that every predicate is so to be understood as to be in agreement with its subject : but to be killed on earth can only be pre- dicated of the natural body ; so, to be destroyed in hell can only be predicated of the spiritual body. Thus it was common with the Lord to use the same word in different senses, though both properly be- longing to it, in the same sentence; as when he says, "He that loveth his life shall lose it ; and he that loseth his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it:" where, obviously, the life lost and the life saved are not the same life. If it be still insisted that we must take the term body in the same sense in the last place as in the first, and understand that which is to be destroyed in hell to be the natural body : I answer ; that then we must here take the term hell to mean such a place as is fitted for the destroying of natural bodies. And this will compel us to take the original term here translated hell, in its literal, and not in its figura- tive sense. The origiual term is Gehenna, which all the lexicogra- phers and commentators tell us is the same in the Syriac language as Gia-Hinnom in the Hebrew, that is, the valley of Hinnom; which, having formerly been the place where the idolatrous Jews made their children "pass through the fire to Moloch,"* was afterwards used * See 2 Kings xxiii. 10. 62 THE RESURRECTION, as a receptacle for every thing filthy and abominable, into which the bodies of the worst of malefactors were cast, and consumed by the fires which were kept continually burning, to prevent infection from being generated by the impurities of the place. This idea being presented to every Jew by the use of the word Gehenna, Doddridge introduces both ideas into his paraphrase of the Lord's words, Matt v. 22 — " shall be in danger of hell-fire;" which he amplifies thus : "shall be obnoxious to the fire of hell, or to a future punishment more dreadful even than that of being burnt alive in the valley of Hinnom, from whence you borrow the name of those infernal regions." * If then it be contended that the body to be destroyed in Gehenna is the natural body, the Gehenna in which it is to be destroyed must be taken in its natural sense also ; it will then be merely the valley of Hinnom. They who will not acquiesce in this interpretation, must give up the notion, that the passage relates to the material body. To combine the natural sense of body with the spiritual sense of the valley of Hinnom, is inconsistency indeed. But if there is some difficulty in regard to the literal sense of this passage, there is none respecting its spiritual sense; which, for its simplicity, beauty, and perfect consistency, I will here briefly state. The soul and the body, in the spiritual sense, are the internal and external man. The life of the external man, by birth, is in opposi- tion to heavenly life, and consists in mere lusts or concupiscences ; wherefore this life is to be relinquished or extinguished ; which is effected by means of temptations. They who kill the body, then, are the temptations, and the tempting powers, by whose agency the life of the external man, or the lite of man's lusts, is extinguished : and he who hath power to cast soul and body into hell, is the love of evil, which is opposition to the Lord, pertinaciously cherished, and which causes the Lord himself to appear as in opposition to man ; the consequence of which is, the destruction both of the internal and the external man, and immersion in endless misery. Matt, xxvii. 52, 53. When Jesus died on the cross, we read, "And the graves were opened ; and many bodies of saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." It has always appeared to me surprising that any should quote this narration in proof of the common doctrine of the resurrection of the body ; when it is attended with such difficulties, if taken literally, as strongly lead to the opinion that the bodies which arose were not natural or material bodies ; and by consequence, that there is no reference to the natural or material body in any of the passages which treat of the resur- rection. * See also his note. TIIE RESURRECTION. (33 In the first place, if the bodies of all who have lived from the creation of the world are to be raised together at a certain last day (as the texts on which the doctrine rests, if they teach any such doc- trine at all, must be understood to affirm), is it not very extraordi- nary that "many" of these same bodies actually rose without waiting for this last day? The matter would be not quite so surprising were there to be two general resurrections, — one at the time of the Lord's resurrection, of all who had lived previously, and a final one of all who should live afterwards ; but in the case before us, the bodies of all who had previously lived did not rise, but only of many of them. Is it not then, secondly, very extraordinary, if there was a resur- rection of material bodies at all, that it should be merely a partial one ? Upon what principle could the selection be made ? How, with justice to the countless millions who were left slumbering still in their graves, to wait for their resurrection thousands of years afterwards, could a termination be thus put to the long sleep of some ? and who could those be supposed to be who were thus favoured ? Mr. Fleming conjectures, and certainly with great plausibility, taking the premises for granted, that they were some of the most eminent saints of the Old Testament. Certainly, very superior eminence was necessary, to make the distinction not invidious. But, as others observe, no saint of the Old Testament was more eminent than David : it would therefore be very improbable that David should be excluded from such a resurrection : and yet we learn, from Acts ii. 34, that David's body then remained still in its grave. The learned are obliged, therefore, to conclude, that these were not eminent, but merely common saints ; and some, to avoid other difficulties, suppose that they were such as had not been long dead, and whose bodies, as yet, were not much the worse for their sojourn in the tomb. But, thirdly, is it not very extraordinary, that so public a miracle, as well as so stupendous a one, as this must have been, if the circum- stances were literally as related, was never appealed to by the Apostles, either in their preaching, as recorded in the Acts, or in their Epistles ; and is never anywhere alluded to but in this single place ? When speaking of the resurrection of Jesus, how came they never to advert to the multitude who rose with him, and who had appeared to so many ? The graves were opened at the Lord's cruci- fixion ; their tenants came forth after his resurrection; "conse- quently," in the words of Doddridge, " the tombs stoud open all the sabbath, when the law would not allow any attempt to close them. What an astonishing spectacle ! especially if their resurrection was not instantaneously accomplished, but by such slow degrees as that represented in Ezekiel's vision." Astonishing, indeed ! And how did the Jews evade the force of such a prodigy ? The sepulchre of Jesus was certainly found unclosed and empty ; wherefore the chief 64 THE RESURRECTION. priests bribed the soldiers to say, that his disciples stole the body while they slept. But to what purpose was this fiction, if a multi- tude of other graves were also thrown open, and the bodies which tenanted them lay disclosed, subject to the inspection of the crowds ■who -would eagerly watch the progress of their revivification, from Friday afternoon till Sunday morning, when they came forth and marched into the holy city ? How could this be concealed ? Was it pretended that the small band of disciples stole all these bodies like- wise ? We do not find that any such fiction was in this case resorted to : and, indeed, in this case, no one could have believed it ; since these things were not done in a corner, but all that was passing in the graves was visible to every observer for more than thirty-six hours. How then did the Jews evade it ? We do not find that they had any occasion to try to evade it ; for we do not find, from any other part of the gospel-records, that either the friends of Christianity, or its enemies, or a single inhabitant of this world, knew anything about the matter. Fourthly, is it not very extraordinary, that this resurrection of dead bodies should take place, and yet there should be no intimation as to what became of them afterwards ? Did they, after having shown themselves, go and lie down again in their graves, to wait for the final "resurrection at the last day?" This, as the pious Doddridge observes, " one can hardly imagine." Did they, then, like Lazarus and the others raised by the Lord when in the world, continue to live on earth, in due time to die again ? This also, with Doddridge, " one can hardly imagine, — because it is only said, they appeared to them." Most, therefore, conclude, with the same writer, that " they ascended to heaven with, or after our Lord :" for it would be impossible to suppose that they ascended before him. But what was done with them in the meantime ? If they remained on earth for forty days, how could they escape observation ? how is it that all Jerusalem was not in commotion on account of the presence of such extraordinary visitors ? Dr. Doddridge supposes, that " they were directed to retire to some solitude during the intermediate days, and to wait in devout exercises for their change ; for surely," as he justly observes, " hud they ascended in the view of others, the memory of such a fact could not have been lost." Indeed, the affair of their ascension was conducted with such secrecy that it was not even wit- nessed by those who were admitted to witness the ascension of the Lord ; and, to make it a greater secret, Matthew himself does not inform us that it ever took place. Now can any one suppose that a transaction which requires such improbable conjectures to make it possible, ever literally occurred at all ? And whither could they ascend ? What region was there in existence suited lor the residence of resuscitated material bodies? THE RESURRECTION. Go They who contend for a general resurrection of material bodies, find it necessary to provide a material world for their abode. Thus Dr. Hody says, " Perhaps, after all, our heaven will be nothing- but a heaven upon earth, or some glorious solid orb created on purpose for us in those immense regions which we call heaven. It seems more natural to suppose, that since we are to have solid and material budies, we may be placed as we are in this life, on some solid and material orb. — That, after the resurrection, we are to live for ever in a new earth, was, as Maximus tells us, the opinion of many in his time : and the same was asserted, in the third century, by St. Methodius, bishop of Tyre, in his treatise concerning the resurrection. " What then was to become of these resuscitated bo lies of saints before this new earth was provided for them ? for they who thus believe the Scrip- tures literally, when they speak of a new heaven [or sky] and a new earth, must believe them literally also when they say, that this new heaven and new earth are not to be produced till the former heaven and the former earth have passed away. Prior to that event then, at least, a resuscitated material body would be in the situation either of a lish in the air, or of a bird under water : it could find no element suited to its state. Other difficulties, in regard to the literal acceptation of this narra- tive, present themselves as I write ; but I forbear to proceed further. From what has been suggested, and from the circumstance, that of these risen bodies the remarkable expression is used, that they ap- peared unto many, the natural inference is, that they were not visible to all, as material bodies must have been, but only to those to whom they appeared ; in other words, that they were seen in vision, not with the natural sight. Hence it will follow, that the bodies which thus appeared in vision were not natural but spiritual bodies, and that the whole transaction belongs more to the spiritual than to the natural world. I shall have occasion to advert to it again, in the Section on the Last Judgment ; when, I trust, its true nature will readily appear. Phil. iii. 21. " Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself." This text is so similar in substance to 1 Cor. xv. 49 and 53, to be considered in the sequel, that it scarcely needs a separate notice : only this pas- sage, combined with its context, evinces (what might be well worthy of particular investigation,) how much the idea of an inward and spiritual resurrection was associated with the subject in the Apostle's mind. Thus, having said that he had suffered the loss of all things, that he might win Christ, he adds, " That I might know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead : not as though I had already 66 THE BESCRRECTIOX. nttained, either were already perfect ; but I follow after," &c* Here what could he mean by the power of the Lord's resurrection, but a power of conforming hiin into the image of his risen Lord ? What by the fellowship of his suffering*, but a submission to such states of affliction and trial as were necessary as means to this end ? What by being made conformable to his death, but the complete mortification of the life of his own old or natural man ? And what by attaining lo the resurrection of the dead, which he evidently speaks of as some- thing attainable in this life, — otherwise his modest notice, " not as though I had already attained," would be nonsense ; — what can he thus mean by attaining unto the resurrection of the dead, but a state of complete regeneration, when all that previously was spiritu- ally dead, — all that is the seat of man's inborn coiraptions. — is quickened with spiritual life, and formed anew by the Lord ? Thus his whole argument is consistent : whereas to make him talk of striving to attain unto the resurrection of the dead, meaning by the resur- rection of the dead the resurrection of dead bodies, which all (if any) are to experience whether they strive for it or not, and which, strive as they will, they cannot bring on any sooner ; is to make him talk in a strange manner indeed. And as, as will be shown in the last Part of this Section, in our remarks on 2 Cor. v. 1 — 4, he always viewed this spiritual resurrection in connexion with the formation of the heavenly spiritual body within our outward frame, first to come into open manifestation when the latter is put off, which is thus ex- changed for it, and, as far as the person's own perceptions are con- cerned, appears as if it were changed into it ; and as, as might easily be shown, he seldom uses the term body or flesh in reference to the body of clay alone, but means by it all that belongs to what is called in theology the external or natural man ; (as when he says, " I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing ; " "I delight in the law of God, after the inward man, but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind ; " " Who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? " " Ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be the spirit of Christ be in you ; " " And if Christ be in you, the body is dead, because of sin ; " " He that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies, by his spirit that dwelleth in you," &c.) — having, I say, these ideas in his mind, he at present closes the subject with saying, that "the Lord Jesus Christ shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body ; according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself:" — meaning, that we shall have a spiritual body, the image of the Lord's Divine Body ; and which is even now being so fashioned within us by the regenerating energy of the Lord. * Ver. 10, 11, 12. THE KESUERECTIOX. 67 2 Tim. ii. 17, 18. " Of whom is Hymeneus and Philetus ; who concerning the truth have erred, saying, That the resurrection is past already ; and overthrow the faith of some." This text has been quoted against us, from " good old John Bunyan," in this form : " Have you not heard of them that were made to err, by hearkening to Hymeneus and Philetus, as concerning the faith of the resur- rection of the body." It seems to be meant to be insinuated, by this false quotation, that we have adopted the opinion of those primitive heretics. How convenient the advocates of error find it, continually to be speaking, as here, of the resurrection of the body, as if such were the language of Scripture ; when, in Scripture, no such language is anywhere to be found. As to the error of Hymeneus and Philetus, the Apostle states that it consisted in saying, " that the resurrection is past already." Whatever idea then they attached to the term re- surrection, it evidently was totally different from ours. When the Apostle affirms that they believed the resurrection to be then past, he must mean, that they disbelieved any resurrection which was then future, and consequently denied any future life : whereas, according to our idea of it, the resurrection is never past, but always future, at every instant of time, to all the inhabitants of the globe, all of whom will experience a resurrection to life without end. Rev. xx. 13. " And the sea gave up the dead which were in it ; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them ; and they were judged every man according to their works." Nothing is here said about dead bodies : and that the whole transaction is not to be literally understood, is plain from the evidently symbolic language in which it is couched. Why is the sea said to give up the dead which are in it, which comparatively are few, while no notice is taken of the dead which are in the earth ! What is meant by death and hell delivering up the dead which are in them ? What kind of dead they are which are in death, does not appear ; but cer- tainly they which are already in hell are not dead bodies. And what is meant when it is said in the next verse, " And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire ? " Are death and hell persons, or places? Or is Death a person, and hell a place ? But the previous verse seems to speak of them both as places, and how death and hell, as places, could be cast into the lake of fire, it is very difficult to conceive. Certainly, nothing like a plausible interpretation of the passage can be given by those, who quote it as evidence for the re- surrection of the body. The whole belongs to the subject of the Last Judgment ; wherefore I will reserve our explanation of it till the next Section. We have now passed under review all the texts which, as far as I am aware, are usually cited by the advocates of the resurrection of OS THE EESUBEECTION. the body in proof of that doctrine ; and it has, I trust, abundantly appeared, that none of them prove any such thing. As, however, the Scriptures so totally refuse to afford evidence for the resurrection of the body, an opponent judiciously ekes out their testimony by that of a prophet who pretended to correct them. "The Swedenborgian," says he, "will esteem it no very high com- pliment to be told, that the Mahometan-: are in more respects than one more orthodox than themselves. I have this moment a book before me entitled ' Mahometunism fully explained,'' and from the sixth article of their faith, which is on the Future Resurrection, I make the following extract : — " We are obliged cordially to believe, and to hold for certain, that the first before all others, whom God shall revive in heaven, shall be the Angel of Death, and that he will at that time recal all the souls in general, and re-unite them to the re- spective bodies to which each belonged ; some of which shall be destined to glory, and others to torment. But \;pon earth the first whom God shall raise, shall be our blessed prophet Mahomet,' " &c. Here, certainly, the doctrine is advanced explicitly enough, and with some very suitable adjuncts ; but our opponents are heartily welcome to all the support they can derive from such authority, which, we trust, will have its due influence on the reader. " The Swedenborgians," we assure them, esteem it no ill compliment, that they are fain to in- trench themselves against them in the orthodoxy of Mahometans. From the terms themselves, — resurrection, — to rise again, — it is sometimes contended, that that which is to rise is something that has lived before, but the life of which has been interrupted, whence it rises or lives again: and this, it is affirmed, is only predicable of the body ; whereas the spirit, as it never ceases to live, though it may be said at death to rise, cannot be said to rise again. But this is, in every respect, a very shallow criticism ; it affords an argument only for the ignorant, and which no man of information can seriously urge. This will be fully shown in the last Part of this Section. At present I will only observe, that even supposing the proper idea of the original words to be, to rise again : it would not follow that he who rises again enters a second time into his material body, and so rises again, any more than that he who is born again enters a second time into his mother's womb, and so is born again. If to be born again (and, in the original, again is here expressed by a separate adverb,) is to enter into a new state in which the man has never been before, to rise again must also be, to enter into a new state in which the man has never been before. The particle again, then, does not, in this use, imply a returning back to the same state as has been previously experienced, but an advancing fonvari to a new state, bearing a certain ana'.ogy to one which has been previously expe- rienced ; and we cannot suppose that the resurrection is a repetition THE KESUKKECTION. G9 of bodily life, without concluding, with Nicodemus, that regeneration is a repetition of bodily birth. How much is it to be lamented, that Nicodemus should have so many disciples ; that many should be so prone, like him, to turn their minds from spirit to matter, and to carnalise the instructions of the Lord Jesus Christ ! For certainly, if it may be said without offence, the idea that, in order to our rising again, we are to return again to the body of flesh, is the exact counterpart of the notion, that, in order to our being born again, we are to return again to the mother's womb. The one is just as good an interpretation of the Lord's instructions as the other. Our existence as embryos in the womb is necessary to prepare us for birth into the world, and birth into the world is necessary to prepare us for birth into eternity : and to suppose that the spirit, after having dwelt for ages in its own world, is to return again to the body which it left in this, is just as consonant with the Lord's instructions, as it would be to suppose, that the man is to be reinvested with the integuments of the foetus, and to return to his mother's womb, not even for the purpose of being born again, but of living the life of a foetus for ever. With this general remark, I close the examination of the texts and arguments commonly adduced from Scripture in proof of the resurrection of the body. I have gone into them thus fully, because I have observed, that, on this subject, the most convincing evidence of the truth often fails to make its due impression, while the mind reverts to the texts and arguments which it has been accustomed to regard as establishing the contrary doctrine, and while it is not furnished with a solution of the opposing confirmations which it has thus imbibed. A sufficient solution has now, I trust, been offered ; and that, by the blessing of Him who is the resurrection and the life, it will be seen, that there is not a single text of Scripture, or argument that can be drawn from that source, which affords any real countenance to the doctrine of the resurrection of the material body. SECTION III. THE RESURRECTION. PART III. The Testimony of Reason, for, and against, the Resurrection of the Material Body. We have now examined most of the texts of Scripture generally referred to as supporting the notion of the resurrection of the body ; 70 THE RESTJURECTION. and have ascertained that, in reality, they afford that doctrine no countenance whatever. Rut the evidence of Reason, also, is here peculiarly worthy of being considered : for this subject includes particulars, the decision of which falls within the province of Reason: and we may be certain that the genuine decisions of Reason can never be at variance with the genuine meaning of Scripture. Before, then, we proceed to the testimony of Scripture in behalf of man's immediate Resurrection, and his non-resumption of the material body, I will show, both by original remarks and the testimony of distinguished writers, that the arguments commonly urged, as from Reason, in favour of the Resurrection of the material body, are destitute of all solidity, and that in fact, such a resurrection is nothing short of impossible. In favour of the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body, only two general arguments, wearing any air of speciousness, have been urged from Reason. These then we will first briefly consider ; after which we will inquire what Reason has to say on the other side of the question. The two arguments to which I allude have constantly been brought forward from the first beginning of the controversies on this subject: but I have no where seen them stated with more subtilty, by mixing fallacies with acknowledged truths so ingeniously, that an inattentive reader might not see how to disentangle them, and thus might accept the one for the sake of the other, than is done by Dr. 0. Gregory, in his elegant and popidar " Letters on the Evidences, Doctrines, and Duties, of the Christian Religion." We will consider them, there- fore, as they are offered by this writer. He opens his chapter on the subject in this imposing manner : — " If a being, which was constituted by the union of two substances essentially different, were appointed to continue, it must continue a mixed being, or it would be no longer the same being ; so that if man is to exist in a future state, the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is a necessary consequence of his nature : those who admit the immortality of the soul and deny the resurrection of the body, therefore, forget the man, and, in effect, deprive him of existence beyond the grave." The fallacy here lies in the premises, — " If a being which was constituted by the union of two substances essen- tially different were appointed to continue ; " — that is, the author means, were appointed to continue a being constituted of two sub- stances ; but this is the very point in dispute, and is gratuitously assumed by Dr. G-, without any proof of it being attempted. Were it true, it would involve the continuance of our existence for ever here: for what sort of continuing is that, which, after having been broken off, as, in the case of our first parents (according to the common supposition), for many thousands of years, is, after the lapse THE RESURRECTION. 71 of, probably, many thousands of years more, to begin again ? Its truth then may be unhesitatingly denied ; and there is an end of the inference built upon it. Besides, if all the substances with which the man h;is been at any time united were intended to form part of him for ever, the coverings within which his body advanced to its complete formation in the embryo-state must be raised again also. Not only, in that state, is the infant inc'osed in the coats called the amnion and corion, but it is vitally united to the compages of vessels called the placenta ; but as, when the infant is born into the world, these extrinsic appendages, in which the embryo had been nurtured to a sufficient degree of maturity, are cast away as refuse, so, when the man is born into eternity, the body, in which his spirit had been nurtured to a sufficient degree of maturity, is also cast away as refuse : the one, then, forms a part of the real man, no more than does the other ; and it is no more reasonable to expect the resurrection of the one than of the other. It is a mere play upon a word then to say, that without the continuance of the union of the soul and body, future existence is denied to the man. This may also be illustrated by a still more familiar example. In a walnut, the kernel and the shell begin their existence together ; but it evidently is solely for the sake of the kernel, — in order that the kernel may be developed and formed, — that the shell is produced at all : and after the kernel is formed, were it to continue for ever in union with its shell, the end of its creation would be frustr ated. Hence, who denies the kernel of the walnut to be the essential walnut ? While it remains in the shell, we indeed apply the term to the whole ; that is, we admit the shell to a slight (and but a slight) share of the honour that belongs to its contents : but when they are separated, while we never tlrink of giving the name of a walnut to the empty shell, we never hesitate at applying it to the kernel : the kernel, only, is the walnut now, as it was the essential walnut always. All this answers by a most exact analogy, to the case of man, his body and his soul ; and demonstrates how mere a quibble it is to affirm, that if the soul and body do not continue in union, there is an end of the man. By the other argument alluded to, it is endeavoured to interest the Divine Justice in the resurrection of the body. Dr. Gregory states it thus: "God is a wise and just governor of the world: such a governor must reward the good and punish the wicked : but in the present state, we often see good men under suffering, bad men following and enjoying pleasure, through the greater part of life: the character of the governor, therefore, requires that there should be a future state, in which this great anomaly shall be adjusted ; [so far the argument is solid ; and the whole of the conclusion which the premises sanction is already brought out : but here comes the decep- tive appendage, built upon the fallacy which we have already exposed] 72 THE EEST7KEECTI0N. " and of course, a state of existence not for the body alone, nor for the soul alone, but for the man in bis mixed nature, constituted of soul and body. It is the man, and not a part of him merely, which this simple train of reasoning requires us to expect shall be rewarded and punished." The futility of this reasoning, however, even the author himself acknowledges in a note : "I am aware," says he, " it may be said, and indeed it has often been said, that since conscious- ness and feeling exist in the soul, the future existence of the soul is all that can fairly be inferred from this argument. But," he adds, " we have at least as good reasons for affirming as any can have for denying, that in all probability the capacity of the soul for feeling the highest degree of pleasure or pain depends upon its union with an organised body." So then his grand argument is allowed to be good for nothing, if the soul without the body can be proved to have sensations of pain or pleasure sufficiently acute : to which an ample answer is given in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. But this argument is allowed to be invalid by many even of the advocates for the resurrection of the body. I might quote the decided opinion to this effect of Dr. Watts : but I will be content with the ingenuous and solid observations of the learned Hody. After citing the statement of this argument by several of the fathers, as they are called, he says, (in his work, " The Resurrection of the Same Body Asserted," &c.) " I desire as much as any man to pay a just de- ference and regard to the judgment of the ancient fathers : but it must be confessed, that though their authority be great in matters of tradition, yet the reasons and arguments which they produce to con- firm their doctrines are not always convincing. If we seriously and impartially consider this assertion, [that God is obliged in justice to reward or punish the body together with the soul,] we shall find it not to be true. My reasons briefly are these. First : to speak pro- perly, the bsdy is not capable either of sinning or doing well. It is only the instrument of the soul : and the arm that stabs, sins no more than the sword ; 'tis the soul only that is the murderer. Neither, secondly, is the body capable of any reward or punishment. 'Tis the soul only that is sensible ; and nothing but what is sensible can be capable of rewards and punishments. Thirdly: If it be injustice in God to pxmish the soul alone without the body in conjunction with which she committed the sin, then all the matter which constituted the body when the several sins were committed, must be raised again, and be re-united to the soul. For if some, why not allf But what monsters of men should we be in the resurrection, if all the substance of which our bodies consisted, from our childhood to our death, should be gathered together and formed into a body ! " — To these three rea- sons of this honest writer's, can anything bearing the semblance of a reason be opposed ? THE BEST/ERECTION. 73 Dr. Gregory, however, considers it to be so necessary, to vindicate the Divine Justice, that the body should be rewarded or punished as well as the soul, that he affirms, "that the conclusion cannot be fairly resisted, unless it can be shown, that the resurrection of the body is impossible." Though we have already seen that his reason- ing is destitute of all validity independently of such impossibility, yet probably it may not be difficult to comply even with this unreasonable demand. But perhaps it may be necessary first to state in what sense I affirm the resurrection of the material body to be impossible : I mean, that it is as impossible as any thing whatever that can be conceived. If we were to pronounce it to be absolutely impossible, its advocates, I know, would eagerly exclaim, that we deny the omnipotence of God. Little honour, to be sure, is done to God, when his omnipotence is supposed to be employed in effecting things trifling, unnecessary, or ridiculous : but without saying, absolutely, that God cannot do it ; from what we see of the nature of his divine works, and of the manner in which he produces them, we may with certainty conclude that he will not : and what God will not do, or wills not to do, is, to all practical purposes, impossible. It is utterly foreign to the argument to appeal, as is done by Dr. G\, to the cases of the restoration of life to the bodies of certain dead persons recorded in the Scriptures ; for in those instances the bodies had not undergone even the commencement of decomposition, nor had the spirit been entirely extricated from them : even in the case of Lazarus, who had been dead four days, there can be no doubt, notwithstanding the conclusion of his sister, that the natural tend- ency to corruption had been miraculously suspended by that Divine Hand, whose purpose from the beginning had been to restore him to life. Besides, all these were restored, not to an immortal, but only to a lengthened period of mortal life, and, after a while, they all died again. Not at all more to the purpose are the examples which Dr. G. relates of the transformations undergone by insects, and the growth from seed of the vegetable creation. Many of these illustrate, by beautiful analogies, the emerging at death of man's spiritual form from the shell of clay ; but in no respect whatever do they answer to the fancied revival of the material body. For instance : respecting the Libellula, or dragon-fly, he relates this pretty history : " Natu- ralists tell us, that the worm repairs to the margin of its pond in quest of a convenient place of abode during its insensible state. It attaches itself to a plant or piece of dry wood ; and the skin, which gradually becomes parched and brittle, at last splits opposite to the upper part of the thorax. Through this aperture, the insect, now become winged, quickly pushes its way, and being thus extricated 74 THE RESURRECTION. from confinement, begins to expand its wings, to flutter, and finally to launch into the air with that gracefulness and ease which are peculiar to this majestic tribe. Now, who, that saw for the first time the little pendant coffin in which the inanimate insect lay entombed, and was ignorant of the transformations of which we are speaking, would ever predict that in a few weeks, perhaps in a few hours, it would become one of the most elegant and active of winged insects ? " To this he adds: " And who that contemplates with the mind of a philosopher this curious transformation, and who knows that two years before the insect mounts into air, even while it is living in - he water, it has the rudiments of wings, can deny that the body of a dead man may at some future period be again invested with vigour and activity, and soar to regions for which some latent organisation may peculiarly fit it ? " Is this indeed the conclusion which he "that contemplates" the phenomenon "with the mind of a philo- sopher " should draw ? Should not such a mind perceive, that " the body of a dead man" answers in reality to " the little pendant coffin" of the insect, not to the winged creature that springs from it ? Liken the body itself to the winged creature, and where do you find " the little pendant coffin ? " The "coffin" of the insect does not answer to the coffin in which man's earthly remains are deposited in the dust, since this never formed, as in the case of the insect, any part of him. But admit that there is indeed a spiritual "organisation," — a spiritual body, "latent" within the body of matter, and which is "extricated from confinement" in it at death, when it " soars to the regions for which a spiritual organisation peculiarly fits it; " and you have, in all its parts, the analogy complete. Such analogies then in no degree tend to prove that the resurrection of the body is not im- possible : they only tend to prove that man may have, within his material body, a " latent organisation," which, if "latent," that is, undiseoverable to the senses, must be a spiritual one, which may emerge from the "coffin" it once animated, and live when this lies mouldering in the dust. But the argument most relied on for proving the possibility of the resurrection of the body, is, that it could not require a greater exer- tion of Omnipotence to restore life to the dead bodies of all mankind, than it required to create them at first ; wherefore, it is asked, As God did the one, why should not he do the other ? To this it may be answered, That whether, or not, the raising again of all dead bodies to life require a greater exertion of Omnipotence than their original creation, of this we are certain, that the one work is within, and according to, the laws of nature, or the laws of order, which every thing demonstrates that God has laid down for the conduct of his own operations ; whereas the other is without, and entirely contrary to, those laws. We know that all the divine works proceed from an im» THE RESURRECTION. 75 perceptible beginning to their fulness and maturity, by successive steps, through the most beautiful progression, regulated by a most certain and most admirable order ; and that this progression and order are particularly conspicuous in the formation of the human body. "We know that, for the formation of a human body, a crude mass of the materials furnished by the lower parts of nature is not at once brought together and then suddenly informed with a human soul, as Prometheus is feigned to have modelled into human shape a mass of clay, and then to have quickened it with fire brought down from heaven ; but that the soul, or the rudiments of the soul or spiritual form, being from the beginning present, and being, doubtless, the immediate agent in procuring for itself a body, the latter commences from the most delicate and highly refined materials which nature can furnish, which are arranged in an organised form from the beginning. We know that the rudiments of the brain are produced first, that being the primary organ in and by which the soul descends into the body ; then the rudiments of the heart ; and that from these two then proceeds the whole system of the nerves and of the arteries and veins, by the medium of which the other viscera of the body are successively formed, and afterwards are inclosed within the muscular and bony frame constituting the cavities of the cranium, the thorax, md the abdomen ; whilst the limbs and exterior members are also gradually formed, and finally the whole is inclosed in the integu- ment of the skin. "We know, also, what wonderful care is exercised by the Creator for the safety of the embryo-man ; all these wonderful works talcing plaoe, not in a cold sepulchre of uncongenial earth, but within the living body of its parent : and, what perhaps is still more striking, and makes a more impassable difference between the mode of the formation of the human body at first and that of its expected resurrection from the grave, we know that not a single atom of the materials from which the sold forms to itself a body, is taken in its crude state from inanimate nature, or is transferred into the human body in the same state as when it previously existed in the inanimate parts ^of nature, but that every particle is first elaborated into a proper state for the purpose, by the most wonderful of all chemical agents, a previously living human body, and is not presented to the infant soul to be by it adopted into the composition of its body, till it has been refined to the proper degree by that living alembic, the body of its parent. And when, by these truly wonderful means, throughout the whole of which shines so conspicuous the infinite Wisdom of the Creator as well as his infinite Power, the incipient human body is brought to such a degree of maturity as to be able to exist in a state of separation from its mother, its further growth, and the continued preservation of its existence, are still provided for in a similar manner. No addition is ever made to its substance by the 02 76 THE BESTJEKECTION. accession of matter taken immediately and crudely from outward nature, but the substances of nature capable of contributing to this purpose, are elaborated into the proper state by the wonderful chemistry exercised upon them by the digestive organs and minute absorbents : thus, in no instance whatever, is a single particle of dead matter united to a living body, without having its intractibility and incapacity for the reception of animal life first overcome by the action upon it of a living digester, — by that amazing chemistry which no art can imitate, and which nature herself cannot exercise in any other laboratory than that of a living body. It is thus that the bodies of the whole mass of mankind, except the first created pair, have been formed and nourished; and who can suppose, that, in regard even to these, the order was essentially different ? Can any seriously believe that Adam was, in fact, a mere Promethean image, — a mass of potter's clay, afterwards endued with a soul ? Who can doubt that the creative energy, when, having completed the world through all its lower kingdoms, it bade nature teem with man, pro- duced, either by the medium of the vegetable kingdom or otherwise, some tender envelope, some artificial matrix, within which the human form might first begin to expand, and which might perform for it the functions of the maternal parent ? Who can doubt, that however the first rudimental form of the first man was produced, he was nourished to his full stature, as his descendants have been ever since, — by aliments incorporated, by the same process, into his frame ? Now is it any derogation from the Omnipotence of the Adorable Creator to say, that matter cannot be compacted into a human body by any other process, than that which we see the Creator himself has provided, and always employs for the purpose ? Are not the laws by which all the changes of matter are governed, the laws of the Creator himself ? When he created matter, did not he also assign to it its proper nature ? May we not then be certain, that in all his operations upon matter, — in all the use which he makes of it in taking from it the materials for the higher species of his omnipo- tent works, — he will regard the nature which he himself has given to matter, and follow the laws which he himself has appointed for the transmutation of dead matter into living and human substance ? Is it possible to change that nature and to reverse those laws, without abolishing matter, as actually existing altogether, and producing a new species of matter, possessing a quite different nature, and subject to quite different laws ? May we not then affirm decidedly, that the resurrection of the body, composed as the body is of the matter actually now existing, and with the general laws for the trans- mutation of which into living substance we are in some measure acquainted, is an absolute impossibilitv ? Really, it appears, that TQS RESURRECTION. 77 there is no conclusion within the powers of reason to arrive at more certain than this. And thus, to affirm that the resurrection of the body is impossible, no more includes a negation of the Divine Omnipotence, than to affirm that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be at the same time. On the other hand, they who maintain such resurrection to be possible, in reality affirm it to be possible for the same thing to be and not to be at the same time : for we see that matter must both continue to be matter, and cease to be matter, to admit of the resurrection of the material body. God is omnipotent because, whatever he sees fit to be done, he can, by his Infinite "Wisdom, contrive the means proper for doing it. In creation, we are enabled to trace, in innumerable instances, some of the means which he employs to arrive at his ends ; and we never discover any of them without being filled with admiration at the wondrous wisdom which they display : but how misplaced is this admiration if it be true, that the same ends might be attained in a more summary manner, without the employment of any means whatever ! This is supposed by those who affirm, that, though it is by the use of such wonderful means, developed in such gradual progression, that the human body is formed at first, yet, after the particles which composed it have again degenerated into crude matter, and have been undistinguishably mixed with the earth and the other elements of nature, they can again be collected together in a moment, and compaginated into the same body as before : and this without any action upon them of the soul, which was continually present in the formation of the body at first, but which can have nc- agency in its resurrection, unless we suppose a particle of it to remain attached to every particle of the dust and gases into which the body is resolved. Surely, if this be exalting the Divine Omnipotence, it is libelling the Divine Wisdom : and there certainly is no presump- tion in affirming, that a measure which reverses the plans of Infinite Wisdom, cannot be included in the operations of Infinite Power. If, then, there does appear such solid reason for concluding the resurrection of the body to be impossible, there surely is no impro- priety in pointing out the absurdities which it involves, and by which its impossibility becomes more obvious. Accordingly this has been done, not only by Swedenborg, but by many other wise and good men, and cordial believers of the Word of God. In that Author's illustration of the proposition, "That the Coming of the Lord is not a Coming to destroy the visible heaven and the habitable earth, and to create a new heaven and a new earth, according to the opinion which many, from not understanding the spiritual sense of the Word, have hitherto entertained," he has occasion to mention the common opinions respecting the resurrection ; in the course of which he makes some striking observations, on which it has been sneeringly 78 THE EESUEEECTION. said, that they " show that the Baron, with all his faith and charity, could almost copy the language of Infidels." Now the ohservations thus stigmatised are precisely the same, iu substance, as those which are more fully drawn out by the celebrated Dr. T. Burnet, in his work " On the State of the Dead," &c* part of which, for the clearness with which they exhibit the deductions of genuine reason on the subject, I will here translate from the Latin original. Speaking on the question, " Whether we are to rise with the same bodies we lie down with in the grave," Dr. Burnet says, " It is not of any great consequence to any of us, whether we shall have the same particles, or others of equal dignity and value, or what shall become of our cast-off carcases, when we shall live in light with angels : " and he quotes this passage of Seneca : " But as we neglect the hairs cut off from our beards, so, when the divine spirit goes out from a man, what becomes of its former receptacle, — whether fire shall burn it, or beasts tear it in pieces, or the earth cover it, — is of no more concern to him, than is the fate of the secundines or after-birth to a new-born child." He afterwards asks, "What are the consequences of taking the texts of Scripture, which seem to speak of the resurrection of the body, in the common sense? which he answers thus: " Let us see what in- consistencies, conveniences, and inconveniences, this opinion of the identity of the terrestrial and celestial body carries with it. We have before observed, that our body in this life is various, under a continual state of renovation and decay, and that, after some years, it passes through an entire change : therefore, in the course of human life, we may have six or seven different bodies, or more. This brings to my mind the question, impertinently enough urged by the Sad- ducees, concerning the woman who had seven husbands ; whom she should have at the resurrection. Let us put the soul for the woman : Having had seven bodies, married partners, in a manner, to that soul, which shall have it at the resurrection ? for it had all. Perhaps you will say, The last. But it was possible the soul was more wicked, or moi e good, in the first body, than in the last ; and therefore the first ought to be taken as a partner in the glory or misery. Moreover : an old and battered body, or a young and infantile one, are no orna- ments to a heavenly court ; and of these the greatest part of departed human nature consists. But if you would raise infants to adult age, and bring back the body worn out by age to juvenility ; here are so many additions and interpolations, that like the ship Argo a hundred times repaired, it has only the name, and none of the particles, of the original vessel. For my part, I had rather have a new house from heaven, than the old patched-up one, mended and botched in this manner. * Be Statu Mortuorum, kc. THE BESUERECTION'. 79 "We shall consider next," lie says again, "In what manner the scattered particles of dust are to be brought together again. The ashes are carried into distant parts over the earth and seas, and from thence into the region of the air, raised by the solar heat, and scat- tered into a thousand places of the heavens. Moreover, they are not only sowed and dispersed through all the elements, but they are inserted in the bodies of animals, trees, fossils, and other things ; and by their transmigrations through different bodies, they assume new natures and qualities, new shapes and figures. These things being granted, we may ask, In what manner this re-collection, from infinite distances, of latent parts and particles, is made ? Nature is too weak to perform all this: and the Divine Power must never he called forth except on just and necessary occasions: As then it is perfectly unne- cessary that we should have the same numerical parts in the immortal body, as we had in the mortal one, we must not call in the Divine Power for its performance. To take great pains to accomplish trifling objects, is folly in man ; and in God it is not to be thought of. To re-collect the particles of all the human carcases deceased from the beginning of the world to the end ; to separate this mass and parcel it out into little heaps ; and then to re-form these and reduce them to their ancient figures ; would be an operose miracle indeed : and the performance of this multifarious miracle would be as unnecessary, as anything like it is unexampled. But it is impossible, also. For the same piece of matter cannot be in two places at the same time. They say that some nations are Anthropophagi, — eaters of men : and it is impossible for the same individual flesh to belong to two bodies. But why do I speak of a few nations ? We are all Allelophagi, — eaters of each other : for, if not immediately, yet after the lapse of some time, we all devour our progenitors. Their flesh having first passed into the substance of herbs and animals, some parts of it must at length pass into ours. If indeed the ashes of the dead, from the beginning of the world, had been preserved in imperishable urns and coffins ; or rather, had they all been embalmed like mummies ; we might hope to prevent this confounding of bodies : but as most carcases are dissolved and dissipated, some of their substance returns to its mother earth, and the rest is exhaled into the air, and falling clown in the dew and rain, is imbibed by the roots of plants, and forms the nourishment of grass, corn, and fruits ; and thence it circulates back into the bodies of another generation. According to the poet : " Jam seges est ubi Troja fuit, resecandaque falce, Luxuriat Phrygio sanguine pinguis humus." * By this revolution the same particle of matter may have suffered * " Rich harvests wave where mighty Troy once stood, Birth of a soil made fat with Phrygian blood." 80 THE RESUERECTION. several metensomatoses, and have gone through more bodies than the soul of Pythagoras. This being the case, how can every body have its own share of the common matter at the resurrection ? If the first possessor has bis due, the latter will come short : and if the last keeps his right, what will become of the pretensions of the first ? Thus if the first posterity of Adam take their material frames complete, and their successors only as much of them as had not been previously occupied, what imperfect bodies will be left for the last generation ! " At length, this learned writer thus concludes: "From what has been said, it appears that it is unnecessary, troublesome, if not im- possible, for us to have the same bodies in this life and in a future state, after we have weighed all the consequences of this identity." And this, I apprehend, will be found to be the conclusion of genuine reason, — of reason illuminated at once by the light of science and by that of revelation. Now, will they who affirm, that Swedenborg, when proving the groundlessness of the doctrine of the resurrection of the same or mate- rial body, " almost copies the language of infidels," say the same of this pious writer, and the many others whose sincere religious feel- ing and sound judgment were never questioned, who have exposed its absurdities in not less powerful language ? They who defend it often seem conscious, that, upon any principle of true reason the doctrine is wholly indefensible ; whence they would fain set a brand upon reason, as something exclusively belonging to unbelievers. The truth is, it is impossible even for scoffers and unbelievers to make the doctrine appear more ridiculous than is often done by those who mean to recommend it. For instance : Is not Dr. Burnet's exposure, just recited, of the inconveniences of the resurrection of the body, which he gives as reasons for regarding it as incredible, more than paralleled in the following intended eulogy upon it, in Dr. Young's celebrated poem of " The Last Day; " in which, in most harmonious numbers, he only and most gravely aims at extolling its wonders ? " Now monuments prove faithful to their trust, And render back their long committed dust : Now channels rattle ; scattered limbs, and all The various bones, obsequious to the call, Self-moved, advance ; the neck, perhaps, to meet The distant head ; the distant legs, the feet. Dreadful to view, see through the dusky sky Fragments of bodies in confusion fly, To distant regions journeying, there to claim Deserted members, and complete the frame." Again, speaking of Pompey, whose head was carried to Csesar, the poet says, " This sever'd head and trunk shall join once more, Tho' realms now rise between, and oceans roar." THE EESUKKECTIOir. SI Again : " The trumpet's sound each fragrant (!) mote shall hear. Or fixt in earth, or if afloat in air, Obey the signal wafted in the wind, And not one sleeping atom lag behind." Again : " No spot on earth but has supplied a grave, And human skulls the spacious ocean pave. All's full of man ; (/) and at this dreadful turn, The swarm shall issue, and the hive shall burn." If the body is to rise again, all this is sober fact. But how mon- strous does the scene appear, when thus faithfully depicted. Had the description been intended for burlesque, how could its ridicule have been made more poignant ? Indeed so irreconcileable to reason appears the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, that many of the advocates for it in sober prose, have thence been driven to make such concessions to their opponents, as amount to an acknowledgment of the utter untenable- ness of the notion. Take, for example, the following statements of the truly respectable Dr. Watts : " It is granted," says he, " that it cannot he the very same body, in all the particles or atoms of it which were united to the soul in this world, that shall be raised and united to it in the resurrection. (1.) Because all the atoms that ever belonged to the animal body of Methuselah in nine hundred and sixty-nine years, would make a most bulky and disproportionate figure at the resurrection. And, for the same reason, all the Antediluvians, who lived so many hun- dred years, would be raised as giants in comparison of us in later days. And on the same account also, every man, at the resurrection, would be so much larger than his contemporaries and neighbours, as he lived longer on earth : which is a vain and groundless conceit. (2.) All the same particles, even, of the body when it died and was buried, can hardly be raised again and united to the soul of any man ; because several of the particles that made one man's body at the time of his death are very probably turned to grass or plants, and so become food for cattle, or other men, and are become part of the bodies of other men several times over. And thus there might be great con- fusion, because the self-same particles would belong to the bodies of different men. Besides, here is one pious man perhaps died of a dropsy, or excessive fat and unwieldy ; must he be raised in that unwieldy bulk and those extravagant dimensions ? Another was worn out to a mere skeleton by a consumption ; must his body be of this slender and withered shape or size ? Others, it may be, from their very birth, were in some part defective, or redundant; and in these cases must not some particles be left out, or added, in the 82 THE RESTTHHECTION'. resurrection, to form a proper body for the glorified soul ? All these considerations prove, that all the precise number of atoms that ever made up a man's body here on earth, or even those that belonged to it at the hour of death, are not necessary to be summoned together to form the same man at the resurrection." * This is unquestionably true : but do not these considerations prove, further, that there can be no resurrection of the material body at all ? How does this estimable writer, who so clearly saw, and so honestly states, these difficulties, endeavour to surmount them ? By resorting to the gratuitous supposition, that there are " some original, essential, and constituent tubes, fibres, or stamiual particles, which remain the same and unchanged through all the stages and changes of life, and are of such a nature as not to join and unite with other animal or human bodies ; " and that these will be " raised in the formation of the new body, and be united to the same soul." But what mere begging the question, against all evidence and all reason, is this ! It is exactly on a par with the fiction of the Rabbins, that there is in the back of every Israelite an indestructible bone called luz, and in whatever part of the world a Jew may be buried, this aforesaid bone makes its way through the bowels of the earth, and will at last emerge, and expand into the perfect J ew again, in the land of Canaan. Which rabbinical doctrine, by the way, extravagant as it is, is yet less inconsistent than the common notion of Christians; for if the Jew is to have a material body again, it is that he may live again in the material world ; not, as the Christian expects, to soar in it to heaven. Archbishop Tillotson, however, evades the difficulty arising from the fact, that the same particles of matter may pass into different bodies, in a quite contrary manner. Instead of supposing that there are certain staminal particles which will not pass into other bodies, he maintains, that if the whole of the matter composing a man's body at any one time were to pass into other bodies, there still would be plenty of materials rightly belonging to him, out of which a good and proper body might be manufactured for him at the resurrection. He reasons thus : "1. The body of man is not a constant and permanent thing, always continuing in the same state, and consisting of the same matter ; but a successive thing, which is continually spending and continually renewing itself, every day losing some of the matter which it h id before and gaining new ; so that most men have new bodies as they have new clothes ; only with this difference, that we change our clothes commonly at once, but our bodies by degrees. And this is undeniably certain from experience. For, so much as • Pliilosophical Essays, Es. viii. THE EESTJERECTIOTf. 83 our bodies grow, so much new matter is added to them, over and besides the repairing of what is continually spent ; and after a man be come to his full growth, so much of his food as every day turns into nourishment, so much of his yesterday's body is usually wasted, and carried off by insensible perspiration, that is, breathed out at the pores of his body ; which, according to the static experiment of Sanc- torius, a learned physician, who, for several years together, weighed himself exactly every day, is (as I remember) according to the pro- portion of five to eight of all that a man eats and drinks. Now, according to this proportion [which is now, however, considered too great,] a man must change his body several times in a year. It is true, indeed, the more solid parts of the body, as the bones, do not change so often as the fluid and fleshy ; but that they also do change is certain, because they grow ; and whatever grows is nourished and spends, because otherwise it would not need to be repaired. " 2. The body which a man hath at any time of his life, is as much his own body, as that which he hath at his death ; so that if the very matter of his body, which a man had at any time of his life, be raised, it is as much his own and the same body, as that which he had at his death ; and commonly much more perfect ; because they who die of lingering sickness, or old age, are usually mere skeletons when they die ; so that there is no reason to suppose (or, at least, not to insist) that the very matter of which our bodies consist at the time of our death shall be that which shall be raised, that being commonly the worst and most imperfect body of all the rest. " These two things being premised, the answer to this objection cannot be difficult. For as to the more solid and firm parts of the body, as the skull and bones, it is not, I think, pretended that the cannibals eat them ; and if they did, so much of the matter, even of these solid parts, wastes away in a few years, as, being collected together, would supply them many times over. And as for the fleshy and fluid parts, these are so very often changed and renewed, that we can allow the cannibals to eat them all up, and to turn them all into nourishment ; and yet no man need contend for want of a bod}' of his own at the resurrection, viz. any of those bodies which he had ten or twenty years before, and which are every whit as good, and as much his own, as that which was eaten." * Really, if the good Archbishop had written this specimen of grave philosophical reasoning in the way of irony, with the intention of throwing ridicule on the doctrine it pretends to defend, I do not see how he could have succeeded better. It seems, according to this statement, that, at the resurrection, all men of moderate age will have at least a hundred bodies a-piece ! and as the soul is to wear but one, Sermon 194. 84 THE KESUKKECTIOX. the difficulty will be, to choose which one, out of the hundred, shall be made immortal. But, in Dr. Hody's very pertinent language, cited above, if one, why not all ? And if, after all, at least ninety - nine parts out of a hundred of the precious matter, about which so much anxiety is displayed, is at last to be thrown away as refuse ; and if, as is likewise argued, it makes no difference which single part out of the hundred is selected for preservation, each being "every whit as good " as the rest, and not a whit better ; thus if, in plain language, in their intrinsic nature, all the hundred parts are mere refuse alike : why are they not all rejected as mere refuse alike ; and why, when ninety-nine of them are discarded, is one to be arbitrarily preserved ? Besides, how does this notable argument provide for the poor infant that dies as soon as born ? As it had never changed its body at all, how is it to get a more proper-sized one at the resurrec- tion ? According to the hypothesis, though it does not signify how much of the matter which once belonged to the body is thrown away, yet no matter can be taken to form it which had not at one time or other belonged to it : is, then, the babe that quits this world as soon as it comes into it, to be still an infant of a span at the resurrection, and to remain such for ever ? To meet this case, I suppose it will be affirmed, that the body of the infant will be miracuously augmented to the stature of the adult. Thus, on the one hand it is insisted, that it is of no consequence if ninety-nine parts out of a hundred of the matter composing the original body be rejected ; and on the other hand it is admitted, that it is of no consequence if ninety-nine parts out of a hundred of the matter composing the resurrection-body be a new addition : whence again it is evident, that to contend for the resur- rection of the same body, is only to assert in words, what is found, upon every theory, to be false in fact. But Mr. Locke is the man for pouring upon such notions the gsnuine light of reason. His opponent, Stillingfieet, Bishop of "Wor- cester, also deemed it essential to justice that the sinner's body should be raised for punishment as well as his soul ; indeed, he thought that, of right, the very same body in which every crime was committed should share in its punishment : but as this would make the bulk of the resurrection-body enormous, he had recourse to the same mode of surmounting this difficulty, as, we have just seen, was adopted by Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury. He affirmed, that " it suffices, to make the same body, to have, not all, but no other, particles of matter, but such as were, some time or other, vitally united to the soul before." On which, among other conclusive remarks, Mr. Locke writes thus : "Your lordship says, 'That you do not say the same individual particles [shall make up the body at the resurrection] which were united at the point of death ; for there must be a great alteration in THE EESUEllECTION. 8,3 them in a lingering disease : as if a fat man falls into a consumption.' Because, it is likely, your lordship thinks, these particles of a decrepit, wasted, withered hody, would be too few, or unfit, to make such a plump, strong, vigorous, well-sized body, as it has pleased your lordship to proportion out in your thoughts to men at the resurrection ; and, therefore, some small portion of the particles formerly united vitally to that man's soul, shall be re-assumed, to make up his body to the bulk your lordship judges convenient ; but the greatest part of them shall be left out, to avoid making his body more vast than your lordship thinks will be fit ; as appears by these your lordship's words immediately following, viz. ' That you do not say, the same particles the sinner had at the very time of the commission of his sins ; for then a long sinner must have a vast body.' " But then, pray, my lord, what must an embryo do, who, dying within a few hours after his body was vitally united to his soul, has no particles of matter, which were formerly united to it, to make up his body to that size and proportion, which your lordship seems to require in bodies at the resurrection ? Or, must we believe he shall remain content with that small pittance of matter, and that yet imperfect body, to eternity, because it is an article of faith to believe the resurrection of the very same body, *. e. made up of only such particles as have been vitally united to the soul ? For if it be true, as your lordship says, ' That life is the residt of the union of soul and body,' it will follow, that the body of an embryo dying in the womb may be very little, not the thousandth part of any ordinary man. For, since from the first conception and beginning of formation it has life, and ' life is the result of the union of the soul with the body,' an embryo that shall die, either by the untimely death of the mother, or by any other accident, presently after it has life, must, according to your lordship's doctrine, remain a man not an inch long to eternity ; because there are not particles of matter, formerly united to his soul, to make him bigger, and no other can be made use of for that purpose : though what greater contiguity the soul hath with any particles of matter which were once vitally united to it, but are now so no longer, than it hath with particles of matter which it was never united to, it would be hard to determine, if that should be demanded. " By these [most justly adds Mr. Locke], and not a few other the like consequences, one may see what service they do to religion and the Christian doctrine, who raise questions, and make articles of faith, about the resurrection of the same body, where the Scripture says nothing of the same body, or if it does, it is with no small reprimand to those who make such an inquiry. ' But some men will say, How are the dead raised up ? and with what body do they come ? Thou fool ! that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but 86 THE BESUBBECTI02T. bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain. But God giveth it a body, as it hath pleased him.' " It would scarcely be right to close this branch of the discussion without adverting to the most extensive and laborious work upon this subject which has appeared in modern times. I allude to " An Essay on the Identity and General Resurrection of the Human Body," by the late Rev. S. Drew. This respectable writer first appeared before the public in the character of a metaphysician ; and he always regarded metaphysics as his forte. He, therefore, enters but slightly into the Scripture proof of the subject : but assuming that the Scriptures assert the resurrection of the body, he labours, by a long chain of fine-spun metaphysical reasoning, to evince how it must be. I apprehend, however, that none can read his very ingenious work, without feeling that it is more calculated to raise doubts than to allay them. His theory is substantially the same with that of Dr. Watts and the Rabbins : indeed, Dr. A. Clarke supplies him, as corroboratory testi- mony, with the story about the bone luz. He supposes that no part whatever of the natural body will be raised again, except some very minute invisible particles, which, he conceives, lie somewhere hidden in the interiors of the frame, are incapable either of addition or dimi- nution from the hour of birth to that of death, and remain indestruc- tible to eternity. He finds it utterly impossible that any other part of the present body can be taken to form the resurrection-body, than these invisible particles ; and these, it is easy to see, he gratuitously assumes, or creates himself, for the purpose. He shows clearly, that all the particles which had ever been united, through life, to the corporeal mass, cannot be taken to form the body at the resurrection, because these would, in many cases, form bodies so vast as to outrage all probability : beside which, the size of the body would then be in exact proportion to the time that the person had lived on earth ; whence, while a child that died as soon as born would still be a diminutive infant at the resurrection, the body of an antediluvian would be as big as a mountain. In addition to which, as he shows further, it is incontestable that many of the particles of some bodies have formed parts of more bodies than one. This difficulty, he demon- strates, is not at all removed by the theory of some theologians, that not all the particles which have ever belonged to our bodies will be raised at the resurrection, but only those which belonged to it at the time of death ; for some of the particles belonging, at death, to persons slain and eaten by cannibals, are certainly incorporated with the bodies of their devourers. Every other theory which can be constructed respecting the formation of the resurrection-body out of any number of the particles belonging to the present body, either during life or at the time of death, Mr. Drew also shows to include insurmountable difficulties. As, therefore, none of the common and fluctuating par- THE REST/ERECTION. 87 ticlcs which have belonged to the body of clay, will serve for the composition of the resurrection-body, he at last adopts, as the only possible alternative, the gratuitous supposition I have already men- tioned, and which he now states in these words : " That some radical particles must be fixed within us, which constitute our sameness through all the mutations of life ; and which, remaining in a state of incorruptibility, shall put forth a germinating power beyond the grave, and be the germ of our future bodies." Now may we not ask, was there ever a more extravagant assump- tion ? Incorruptible particles fixed within us, and incapable, as he also asserts, of either increase or diminution from birth to death; — so fine and subtle that no microscope can detect them, no chymistry decompose them ; — and, while all the other particles of the frame become undistinguishably mixed with the elements, preserved snugly by themselves from the death even of Adam to the end of the world, through all the changes and catastrophes of the world and of nature ; then suddenly to rush into union with the returning soul, and to expand into the full dimensions of a proper-sized body ! * Is it not surprising, that when a man of abilities saw the resurrection of the body to be untenable upon every hypothesis but this, he did not per- ceive that this was as untenable as any, and admit it to be impossible to maintain any resurrection of the body at all ? Is it not astonishing that philosophers and divines should go so far out of the way to provide for man a resurrection-body, as to dream of unconscious, incorruptible, corporeal substance, — of fixed, unalterable, yet invisible matter ; — when the obvious truth lay so much nearer at hand ? Yes, Mr. Drew ! Man has an incorruptible germ within him, which will form the proper body of his soul hereafter. But this is not matter : it is no part of the material body, though contained within it. It is the proper substance of the soul itself, the form in which the soul lives when separated from its material covering : it is the spiritual body, to which, while we remain here, the natural body, in its every fibre, is a case or sheath. This does not lie useless and insensible, as Mr. Drew supposes his particles of incorruptible matter to do, from death till thousands of years afterwards. It comes at once into its full and proper life and activity ; and man lives, though a spirit, still a man, and in a really substantial though spiritual body, from the day of his mortal dissolution to all eternity. * All this is asserted, p. 1S1, &o. 88 THE KESTTRRECTIOU. SECTION III. THE RESURRECTION. PART IV. Scripture Evidence of the True Doctrine. Passing, at length, from the negative proofs of the non-resurrec- tion of the material body, — having seen that there is nothing in Scripture, nor yet in the conclusions of sound reason, which sanctions the notion of such a resurrection, but that, at least from the last source of evidence, there is much that conclusively disproves it ; — I Trill now adduce some of the direct evidence of Scripture in favour of that view of the Resurrection, which we accept as the genuine doctrine of the AVord of God ; viz. : That man rises from the grave of his dead material body immediately after death ; that he then iinds himself in a world, not of mere shadows, but of substantial existences, himself being a real and substantial man in perfect human form : and that, consequently, the dead material body will never be re-assumed. I will commence with considering the celebrated fifteenth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians. I begin with this, because, some having referred to it as favouring the opposite doctrine, it is important to settle its true design, before proceeding to texts of which the meaning is quite unequivocal. I will first notice the parts of the chapter which have been cited in proof of the doctrine of our opponents. " But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order : Christ the first-fruits ; afterward, they that are Christ's at his coming." * It has hence been contended, very truly, that " his [Christ's] resur- rection is set forth as a sure pledge of ours." But the meaning of those who advance this is, that our resurrection is to be exactly of the same kind as our Divine Prototype's : thus it is argued, from the term "first-fruits;" " The word first indicates a subsequent or successive number, more or less. If Christ were the only one to rise from the dead, bodily ; then it might with equal propriety have been said, — Christ the last-fruits, #e." The author of this objection seems to have forgotten, that the Lord Jesus Christ actually does say of THE RESURRECTION. b9 liimself, " I am the First and the Last" (Rev. i. 17) : and we shall perhaps find that this is perfectly true, even with respect to his resurrection. It is necessary here to be borne in mind, that throughout this chapter, and generally elsewhere,* the Apostle never separates in his thoughts the idea of resurrection from that of regeneration : and it is impossible to apply what he says of the resurrection to any but the regenerate. As remarked by Doddridge, it is " of the resurrection of [true] Christians alone, and not of that of the wicked, that he evidently speaks in this whole chapter." Having the idea of the spiritual resurrection thus combined in his mind with that of resuscita- tion from natural death, and the former idea being generally upper- most in his thoughts, his language is often more strictly applicable to the former resurrection than to the latter. His meaning here is rendered evident by his language elsewhere. " Know ye not," says he, "that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death ? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism unto death ; that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection : Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him : knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more : death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once ; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." t Thus the Apostle, by our dying in Adam, means, chiefly, death as regards spiritual life ; by our dying after the likeness of the death of Christ, he means a death to the former death, or a being " freed from [the power of] sin," " the body of sin being de- stroyed," or the life of the merely external man being extinguished; and by our experiencing "the likeness of Christ's resurrection," he means our "walking in newness of life." Nothing can be more explicit. Evidently, it is in this sense, mainly, that he speaks to the Corinthians of Christ as our "first-fruits," of "the resurrection of the dead" as coming by Him, and of being "made alive " in Him. Hence he excludes the wicked from having any share in the resurrec- tion he is here treating of: he confines it to " them that are Christ's." None, however, deny that the wicked are to partake of the general resurrection as well as the good : his excluding the wicked, therefore, * See the remarks above on Phil. iii. 21. (p. 65.) t Rom. vi. 3 — 11. H 00 THE EESUEEECTION". proves, that he is here treating, primarily, of a purely spiritual resurrection ; and as this is accompanied with a new formation of our spiritual frame, which emerges from the natural body at natural death, therefore he regards this resurrection as a mere necessary con- sequence from the former. That the phrase, " Christ the first-fruits," does also relate to the resuscitation of the good man from natural death, in his spiritual body as formed anew by regeneration, I therefore readily admit. But that, in this application, it does not literally mean that he was the first that ever rose from the dead, is evident from the fact, that, literally, he was not the first. Do we not read of several who were raised from the dead by the prophets in the Old Testament ? Did not the Lord Jesus Christ raise several from the dead before he died himself, and thus before he rose again ? But perhaps our opponents, as these facts cannot be denied, will shift their ground, and say, that they do not mean that he was the first that rose, but that he was the first who ascended with his body to heaven. But how does this agree with what the same parties believe, that Enoch and Elijah ascended to heaven with their natural bodies long before. We, indeed, are convinced, that neither Enoch nor Elijah ascended to heaven in their bodies, just as we are convinced that the phrase, "Christ the first- fruits," does not mean that Christ was literally the first who ever rose : but our opponents affirm both, though by maintaining the one they negative the other. If, then, in application to the subject of the resuscitation from the dead, the expression, " Christ the first-fruits," does not mean that he was first in point of time, what does the Apostle intend by the expression ? The same, doubtless, as when he calls Jesus Christ, in reference to another subject, the Author (and Finisher) of our faith.* The words, also, used in the original, are very similar : both are compounds of arche, the beginning, and, as applied to the Lord, the origin or source. That translated first-fruits (aparche) is literally, from the "beginning ; and that translated author (archegos) is pro- perly, he who precedes another, as leader. If then it is right, as it certainly is, to translate the latter word, when applied to the Lord, the Author, and to understand that the Apostle means, by his use of it, to direct us to him as the Author of the Christian faith ; it would be equally right to translate the former word also, when applied to the Lord, the Author, and to understand that the Apostle means to direct us to him as the Author of the Christian's resurrection. Thus the Lord applies to himself the more universal term (arche), which is the root of both these, to indicate that he is the Author of all things to his Church: "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning * Heb. xii. 2. THE EESTTRBECTION. 91 (archc) and the end, the first and the last" (Rev. xxii. 13); — "These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning (arche) of the creation of God" (Ch. iii. 14). It is certain then that Jesus Christ is our First-fruits, according to this spiritual idea, — our Aparche, — hoth in respect to the true Christian's resurrection from natural death and his resurrection from the death of sin, — that he is the Author both of the one and of the other : but does it thence follow, that because he rose with his natural body glorified, we are to rise with our natural bodies also ? The Apostle's language certainly does not imply this, but the contrary. For he says, " But every man in his own order ; Christ the first- fruits ; afterward they that are Christ's ; " where the words order and afterward do not refer to order and sequence of time, but of rank ; indeed, the word translated order might properly be translated rank ; it being the term {tagma, whence our tactics) appropriated to the marshalling of an army. It is also shown by the lexicographers, that aparche means what is first, or primary, with respect to dignity or excellence, as well as with respect to time.* Thus the Apostle explicitly informs us, that our resurrection is not to be of the same order, or rank, as that of the Lord, but that as his was a resurrection suited to his nature, so will ours be a resurrection suited to ours. He therefore rose with his whole body complete, though it was now no longer a material but a "glorious" or divine body, and thus he lives and reigns as a Divine Man : if otherwise, his saving influences could not extend to man in his natural state in the world, who thus would be left where he was before, and would derive no benefit from the Lord's assumption of, and resurrection with, the human nature. For the sake of men in the world, and that he might be eternally present with men in the world, the Lord rose to glory with all that belongs to a man in the world, that he might thence immediately act upon and influence him: hut as, when man leaves the world, he has done with it for ever, it is quite unnecessary that he should take with him that body which was the medium by which his soul communicated immediately with the world ; and therefore, though he rises with his spiritual body, to be the medium of his communicating with the spiritual world, he does not, like his Divine Prototype, take with him his natural body in addition, because he does not, like Him, continue to communicate immediately with the natural world also. In this respect then, most truly, in the quaint language of the objector, the Lord is the last-fruits as well as the first ; or, in his own divine language, he is the First and the Last, — the only Being who is at once in last principles and in first ; — who is the Originator of all things, — the First; — and the Sustainer of all things, — the Last. * See Schleusner. 92 THE RESURRECTION, Thus we see that it was not without reason that the Apostle intro- duces the remark, "But every one (not every man, but everyone, or each, elcastos) in his own order ; " — that he meant to apprise us, that the resurrection of the Lord was of a different order from that of man. But the Apostle adds the words, "at his coming;" — "afterward, they that are Christ's at his coming:" whence some infer, that he postpones the resurrection that he speaks of to the end of the world. We have already conclusively seen, that the nature and time of the Lord's second coming were not in that age revealed, even to the Apostles. This Apostle, therefore, entertaining the opinion that the Lord's second coming would be witnessed by that generation, might naturally refer their great change (to be treated of presently) to the time of that event. But, certainly, the resuscitation of the regenerate, — of them that are Christ's, — in their spiritual body, takes place at their death ; and it is admitted by all, that the hour of death is often referred to in the Scriptures, as a coming of the Lord, — "his coming," as Dr. Watts expresses it, " by his messenger of death." In a purely spiritual sense, it is certainly a coming of the Lord to the soul, when a man, in the Apostle's language before quoted, "lives with him," or when, being "dead unto sin," he becomes "alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord :" assuredly, then, when the spiritual body which is formed anew by regeneration, in lieu of the "body of sin," emerges from its shell of clay and appears before the Lord in the eternal world, it is, to the man, the coming of the Lord. At the close of the Chapter, the Apostle speaks more particularly of the manner and time of our exchanging our natural body for the spiritual one. He refers it, indeed, as to those then living, to a period which has proved very distant, and which most believe to be yet unarrived : but he only does so, because he expected, as we have fully seen already, the Lord's second coming to occur in the life-time of that generation, and probably of himself. Thus no valid inference can hence be drawn as to a future resurrection of the material body. Ail who should be deceased previously to the Lord's second coming, he con- siders as having, also, previously experienced their resurrection ; all who should then be living in the world, as passing through a change, the same as death had effected in the others. With these facts in the mind, there will be no difficulty in reconciling what he here says, with his doctrine in the preceding part of the chapter and elsewhere, which, as we shall find, is the clear New-Church doctrine of the resurrection. Addressing the Corinthians of that generation, he says, " Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump : THE KESTJEEECTION. 93 for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible; and we shall be changed." * It is generally supposed, that the Apostle here refers to a coming of the Lord to put an end to the world ; and it is sufficiently probable, that if he did not expect the world to be absolutely destroyed at the Lord's second coming, he expected a great change to be made in the state of it. "When, therefore, he says, " We shall not all sleep," he certainly appears to mean, that all that gene- ration would not previously die, but some would be living to witness the occurrence. When he adds, "but we shall all be changed," he means that some then living would previously have undergone the change made by death, and the rest, who should still be alive, would undergo a similar change then. When he says that this will be effected "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump," he seems to mean that the change will be sudden with all, both with those who would previously have died and those who should then be alive : but we shall find abundant proof, presently, that he cannot mean that the previously deceased would not undergo their change, till those who, he expects, would be living, should experience theirs : he only means that the change would be sudden with all, though not occurring at the same time. So when he says, " and the dead shall be raised incorruptible," he does not mean to say, that there would be no resurrection of the dead till that period : for, as we have already noticed, and shall further evince presently, his Divine Master taught, that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, — consequently all who had departed out of the world, — were already enjoying the "resurrection from the dead;" and the doctrine of the Apostle, as we shall also soon see, was the very same. That this, in fact, is the Apostle's meaning in this very passage, is perfectly clear from the exactly parallel passage which we have already considered from his first Epistle to the Thes- salonians ;t where he says, "Them also which sleep in Jesus shall God bring with him ;"J plainly evincing, that when he afterwards says, "And the dead in Christ shall rise Jirst"§ he means, that they would have risen before, otherwise Jesus could not bring them with him. The same is the only true meaning, and that which, alone, the Apostle, to be consistent with himself, could intend, when he here says to the Corinthians, "and the dead shall be raised incorruptible." The truth is, that this passage to the Corinthians is, in all important particulars, parallel to the passage to the Thessalonians, and is to be understood in exactly the same manner. It is another varied recital of the Lord's words in Matt. xxiv. 30, 31 : and they do not relate to the resurrection, or the passing out of this world into the other, at all: and, like the quotation to the Thessalonians of the same portion * Ver. 51, 52. t See alore, pp. 50, 51, 52. J Ch. iv. 14. § Ver. 16. 91 THE EESUEEECTIOK. of the Lord's prophetic discourse, it evinces, that the Lord did not see fit that the true nature and time of his second coming should then be openly revealed ; whence even the Apostles were permitted to enter- tain, upon this one subject, obscure, and in some respects, erroneous ideas, expecting it to take place literally, as described figuratively, in the life-time of that generation, and probably in their own. Thus Paul, mistakingly including himself, here says, " We shall not all sleep;" just as, when writing to the Thessalonians, he said, "We that are alive, and remain." The second coming of the Lord, being, as we have seen at large in the preceding Section, only to take place, in this world, in a spiritual manner, though accompanied, in the spiritual world, with representative appearances, has no immediate connexion with the subject of the resurrection : but the Apostle, expecting it then soon to take place, illustrates and enforces his doctrine of the resurrection, both to the Thessalonians and to the Corinthians, by assuring them, that even they who should be living at the time would not pass into the state of future blessedness with their material bodies, but would experience the same transition out of the natural body into the spiritual body which others experience at death ; that they should then meet their faithful brethren who were gone before, and, together with them, " be ever with the Lord." * This, I repeat, is plainly the import of the words now before us, "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." Though, it appears, the words, "We shall not all sleep," must be admitted to convey the erroneous expectation, that the Apostle and others would be found living at the time of the Lord's second coming, not having passed through natural death ; yet he connects this harmless error with the grand universal truth, " we shall all be changed ; " plainly affirming that all, whether dying in the ordinary way or not, will pass from a natural state to a spiritual one before they can enter their eternal abode, being divested of the natural body and appearing in the spiritual body ; agreeably to his previous declarations, to be con- sidered presently, that "there is a natural body, and there is a spiri- tual body;" and "that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption." This inter- pretation is indeed so obvious, that it has forced itself on other theological writers. The Rev. Mr. Drew has these judicious remarks: "Though" (taking the prophecy literally) "the last generation of the human race shall be exempted from the stroke of death, yet the change itself which death produces shall not be dispensed with. For though 'all shall not sleep,' yet 'all shall be changed.' The change seems absolutely necessary, by what means soever it maybe produced, to the production of that spiritual body which we have already * 1 Thess. iv. 13, 14, 17. THE EESUBEECTION. 95 considered. The change, therefore, through which these last indi- viduals of mankind shall pass, must be, in its nature, equivalent to that which death, by a much slower and more gradual process, shall produce upon the great mass of the human race."* Again: "As 1 flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,' ' nor corruption inherit incorruption,' those corruptible and visible parts, which we behold, must disappear, either through the process of the grave, or of that change which shall supersede its necessity. The realbody, which shall be hereafter, must therefore at present be concealed beneath those exuvi