of the resurrection is the same with the body of the present life in any of its successive stages? And if it is not the same as to substance, in what respect is it the same? Our critic replies, "It is the same, in this sense at least, that it is known as such, and is the seat of the same intelligence." Undoubtedly the future body will be known as a body, and it will be known too as the seat of the same intelligence. But what of that? The question is, will it be known as the same body-the same in substantial entity? If so, with which of the several successive bodies will it be identical? Here, alas! is the point where the most urgent interrogation uniformly fails to call forth any definite reply. "The reviewer is very ready to confess his want of certain knowledge as to the manner in which the relation of identity or sameness is to be established between the two bodies." But, our dear reviewer, the question between us is a question not so much as to the manner, as it is as to the fact, of such an alleged relation. Produce the evidence of the fact, and we will consent that shall wave all exposition of the manner. you

And

And this sameness of body has nothing to do with sameness of particles. It is not a conclusion of reason, but a fact of consciousness!"

This is certainly a new office of consciousness, to testify directly contrary to known truth. But what will reviewer say if we affirm, as we do, that consciousness, in the strictest propriety of speech, does not assure us of the existence of a body at all? Consciousness assures us only of what comes within the sphere of its operations, and these are sensations, affections, and thoughts. It is by a subsequent process of mind that we refer our sensations to a body. It is indeed a process involving an infallible intuition, but it is one which transcends the office of consciousness. Yet we do not object to the use of the common language on the subject. It is only when an undue advantage is taken of this language, and an attempt made to elevate it into a standard of absolute truth, that we feel called upon to enter our protest and to make the requisite philosophical discriminations. So far as mere consciousness is concerned it reports a body as truly in another life as in this, for it reports merely its sensations, and these we have shown to belong to the xì, which lives after death.

in order to give a more precise direction to your researches let us state distinctly the point which is to be labored in the argument. Here are some eight, ten, twelve, or twenty bodies successively tenanted by the same inhabiting soul during life. These bodies, one or all, are to be brought into a relation of identity with some single body affirmed to be forthcoming at the period called "the last day." We demand in the first place that you distinctly inform us whether you assume to establish the identity of any one of the number with the resurrection-body, or of the whole. If you take the former alternative, then we ask which of the plurality you fix upon, and why that one rather than any of the rest. If the latter, then it is a fair requisition that you show clearly that the averments of Scripture require the belief, that the aggregate of all the bodies inhabited by the soul of any individual on earth shall be reproduced at the final consummation, and constitute thenceforward the residence of the soul to eternity.

We foresee at once that the solution of the problem will be referred to Omnipotence. God has expressly asserted that the body shall be raised, and he has infinite power to accomplish all he has announced. Therefore the body-the same body-shall be raised at the appointed time. But let it not be forgotten that the same God has endowed his creature man with an intelligence which assures him that more than one body inevitably enters into our conceptions of the matter, and it is utterly impossible to repress inquiry as to the true subject upon which his Omnipotence is to exert itself. While we are not at liberty to question for a moment the competency of infinite power to effect every thing to which it has pledged itself, we are not at the same time withheld from a humble inquisition into the terms of the proposition to which our faith is demanded. Light upon this head is all that we ask of the advocates of the common doctrine of the Resurrection. Omnipotence, it is affirmed, is engaged to accomplish something in respect

We simply

to the resuscitation of the dead bodies of men. ask to be informed what it is. We are conscious of no irreverence in propounding this query, nor do we admit that it is unreasonably urged upon the assertors of the common view of the doctrine. We cannot conceive that our credence is challenged to a particular doctrine of revelation but upon the ground of some specific meaning that is attached to the terms in which it is proposed. Our object is to ascertain this meaning. We have not as yet been so fortunate as to meet with any writer who has seen fit, while denying the soundness of our positions, to make any enunciation on this head that did not contrive, in some way, to evade the real point of the difficulty. By opposing an acknowledged ignorance of the mode, to the just demand for a clear statement of the fact, of an alleged relation between the present and the future body, and by falling back upon a vague resort to Omnipotence, they have uniformly managed to rid themselves of the responsibility of a categorical reply to the objections urged. Meanwhile there is no lack of intelligibility or emphasis in the language employed to characterize the presumption implied in the attempt to penetrate the cloud of darkening generalities with which the truth is so studiously enveloped. But nothing, we conceive, is eventually to be gained for the credit of Revelation by a course of proceeding which refuses to admit that the mode of the Resurrection is yet a mooted point in theology, or which would make the questioning of the received theory on that subject a virtual denial of the whole doctrine. A very slight acquaintance with the dogmatic history of the church is sufficient to evince, that conflicting views have never ceased to be entertained among divines, in regard to the mode of the fact, who have cordially received the inspired annunciation of the great and glorious fact itself.* We claim an entire freedom to discuss in extenso and salva fide

* See Appendix.

every thing pertaining to the Scripture disclosures of a future state, and if upon a strict exegesis of the word a sense of the language results which presents the doctrine under a new aspect, and makes the resurrection to be a resurrection, not of the same body at the end of the world, but of the same person at the end of life, we reclaim against this result's being considered as in any way undermining or impugning the essential truth which lies at the centre of the tenet, viz., that the man who dies is to live again and possess an immortal existence in a psychical body. This is the core of the resurrection-doctrine, and so long as this truth is held inviolate, all that is essential to the integrity of the dogma remains untouched. The retributive sanctions of the religion of Christ lose none of their force upon the view now advanced, and its accordance with the deductions of a rational psychology will have any other effect, with a liberal mind, than that of diminishing the weight of the evidence by which it is sustained. To all the impulses of the pious heart, moreover, it comes commended by the holding forth of an unbroken continuity of blissful and bodily being from the moment the eyes close in death onward through the eternal years. The comfortless theory of the sleep of the soul dies away upon this view, like the night-dream of a fevered brain when the morning beams proclaim the risen sun. The dense gloom that haunted the grave melts into glowing and genial light, and the regenerate soul awakes to a new fulness of joy in a richer assurance of the immortality that is destined to crown its hopes.

APPENDIX.

CONFLICTING VIEWS OF THE RESURRECTION.

[The following article is inserted from a pamphlet written by the Rev. Augustus Clissold, a clergyman of the N. J. Church, England, in answer to a Review contained in the "Preston Magazine" for Oct. 1, 1843. The portion extracted is in reply to the Reviewer's denunciation of Swedenborg's doctrine of the Resurrection, which is substantially the same with that arrived at in the present work. It is, however, transferred to our pages solely with the view of presenting the historical evidence of the great diversity of opinion entertained on the subject by divines of the highest name in the Church.]

'THE Reviewer says, Swedenborg states it to be the popular doctrine, that man will not live in the body after death before the last judgment; and the Reviewer adds, "This view, which is scriptural, he altogether rejects." Now, what does he reject? He rejects the doctrine that man lives in a material body after death; but so far from rejecting the doctrine that man lives in a spiritual body after death, the whole of this narrative maintains it, as any one may see, by consulting the work.

Swedenborg exposes the folly of those who say, that departed spirits are shut up in the centre of the earth, or flying about the universe; and the Reviewer says "these notions are inventions of Swedenborg." Now, so far from these being inventions of Swedenborg, a learned writer, Suicer, maintains that the former was the opinion of St. Basil; and Lord King, in his History of the Creed, that it was a doctrine common among many of the early fathers: it was also the opinion of Bishop Horsley, as any one may see in his Sermon upon Hades: it is the opinion of one of the most recent commentators on the Apocalypse, Mr. Govett; and both opinions are broached by Dr. Scott, whose