body, which will soon be a lifeless corpse, is Socrates? Let him dispose of my body as he pleases, but let him not mourn over it as if it were Socrates." So likewise, and in the same strain, does Cicero speak of death, as the glorious day when he shall go into the great assembly of spirits, and shall be gathered to the best and bravest of mankind who have gone before him. Mr. Merry adds : That the human mind should thus have arrived by philosophical deduction, assisted probably by tradition, however faint and remote, gathered from the Egyptians, and running back to Patriarchal origin, is not here brought forward as an evidence of truth; but as showing how gratefully sensible we should be, of the inestimable advantage enjoyed by the Christian over the Heathen world. That prospect of futurity, which was dimly perceived, and by the most learned only, the master-minds of the Grecian and Roman empires, is in our own day brought home with joyful certainty, to the cottage-door of the humblest and the poorest. Their philosophy which Plato, and after him, Cicero, define to be "Scientia rerum Divinarum et humanarum cum causis," was a wellconceived and pleasing hypothesis; but vouchsafes to us immutable truths, established on the sure evidence of the Bible, and which are open to all who have ears to hear, the unlearned and the learned. If we do not recognize this Platonic doctrine, what becomes of the dictum which our polished Essayist has put into the mouth of the noble Roman, in the classic play of Cato: It must be so-Plato, thou reason'st well Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality? Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought! Through what variety of untried being, Through what new scenes and changes must we pass? The wide, th' unbounded prospect lies before me. If there's a Power above (And that there is all nature cries aloud Through all her works) He must delight in virtue; And that which he delights in must be happy.- Addison. THAT MAN MUST BE IMMORTAL. Bishop Courtenay, in his able work on The Future States, considers, at some length, the opinion that Man must be immortal, drawn from the wonderful skill and care shown in his structure. He argues, that for all we know, these contrivances may be, in themselves, as important as the end-human existence and wel That Man must be Immortal. : 211 fare; and that the importance of the end may depend on its being effected by means of such contrivances. Next, that if human existence were itself, and without reference to the means, the highest of all ends, the analogy of inferior nature shows that even the greatest things are perishable and further, that if man be destined, through the excellence of his nature, for perpetuity, the species, not all the individuals of the species, will continue: and while there are, moreover, considerable difficulties in the way of the supposition, that the species would attain a higher degree of perfection in a disembodied state than in the present world. And, finally, that nearly equal solicitude has been manifested by the Creator in providing for the welfare of the inferior creation; and this, notwithstanding that man is at the head of that creation, and is the sole creature capable of comprehending and admiring the words of God, and of recognizing the Maker with gratitude and veneration, not with a view, solely or chiefly, to the gratification of the human race. The beautiful diversity of structures, and of other contrivances, which we find actually to prevail in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, is indeed calculated to excite pleasure and wonder in the minds of all, gratitude and veneration in those whose thoughts ascend to the First Cause; but it would be inconsistent with those very feelings so to limit the Creator's bounty and contract the dimensions of the scheme of nature ;-as unreasonable as to suppose that the stars were set in heaven only to give light to our globe, or display to us the extent of creative power. If all, or the greater part of the arguments (continues the Bishop,) which have been here employed, in proof of the dependence and connexior of mind on organized matter, and on animal life, be correct, there arises, in the opinion of the writer, a very strong presumption that the death of the body will cause a cessation of all the activity of the mind, by way of natural consequence; to continue for ever, unless the Creator should interfere; and restore, by a fresh exertion of His power, either the soul alone, or the soul and body together. In the next Book-" Moral Evidence of a Future Life "-Dr. Courtenay argues that the light of the moral faculties of man, appearing to be more immediately derived from a celestial source than any other which the Father of Lights has conferred on us, seem peculiarly calculated to assist in the investigation of the more abstruse and mysterious parts of His designs; and may reveal to our hopes, though dimly and doubtfully at best, things beyond the reach of mere intellect; but which Revelation alone can fully disclose. When, by the aid of these faculties, we come to understand, in some degree, the true moral condition of man; and his relations to God, not as a Maker only, but as a Moral Governor, who interferes with all events, in the history both of nations and individuals; and, notwithstanding the apparent abandonment of all the details of that history to the operation of blind natural causes, brings about in the end, through their instrumentality, great moral purposes of his own; and when rendered more confident by this addition to our knowledge, we attempt to decide for what ends this human race, seemingly so perishable, was called into existence, we are led to extend our views beyond this world, the hope of immortality becomes no longer a baseless vision.* "Man we believe to be immortal," says the eloquent author of The Physical Theory of Another Life, "Man we believe to be immortal, (revelation apart,) not because his mind is separable from animal organization; but because his intellectual and moral constitution is such as to demand a future development of his nature. Why should that which is immaterial be indestructible? None can tell us; and on the contrary we are free to suppose that there may be immaterial orders, enjoying their hour of existence, and then returning to nihility." In contemplating man as a moral being, we ultimately obtain, though not without many occasions of misgiving, more ample and encouraging views of the Divine economy, and see reason to think that man was created for purposes which cannot all meet their accomplishment in this world, and will find it in another; and to conjecture that after death, the Creator may again put forth His power, in order to restore the spirit that had returned to him, and rebuild the structure that could not preserve itself from decay. * The line of argument here alluded to is followed out by Dr. Chalmers, in his Bridgewater Treatise, in the chapter-On the Capacities of the World for making a Virtuous Species Happy. It is strange that any one should consider the predicted "return of the spirit (or life) to God who gave it," as an assurance and promise of immortality. As long as the breath of life remains in them, (for "the spirit" means no more) His creatures live; when the Giver resumes it, they die. So in Job, chap. iii. v. 34, "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life." And (chap. xxxv. v. 14,) "If God gather unto Himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust." The breath of life breathed into the nostrils of Adam was animal merely. For compare Genesis, chap. vii. v. 13, "All (animals) in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died." The Christian Resurrection. "THE Christian's hope," says Archbishop Whately, "as founded on the promises contained in the Gospel, is the Resurrection of the Body." Again, Isaac Taylor assures us that "what the Christian Scriptures specifically affirm is the simple physiological fact of two species of corporeity destined for (assigned to) Man: the first, that of our present animal and dissoluble organization; the second, a future spiritual structure, imperishable, and endowed with higher powers and many desirable prerogatives."+ The assertions of Scripture, plainly interpreted, show that Holy Writ instructs man to expect no future life that shall be unconnected with and independent of physical restoration. Death, for the period of his cold reign, is the cessation of all vitality, and, consequently, the actual though not final extinction, along with every corporeal power of the soul. Scripture and philosophy, however, unite in the non-encouragement of certain notions associated with the decease of relatives and friends, to not a few of whom consolation comes with the thought that the soul of him or her departed is in Heaven,—not waiting for the Judgment that should decide its fate. To not a few, moreover, It is a beautiful belief That ever round our head, The beauty is, however, but poetical; and a firm faith in the Christian Resurrection should not be the less sustaining; for, agreeably to Christianity, the period of the separation of the beloved one taken and the sorrowing one left, is computable alone by the farther length of the sorrower's stay in this world; the moment of death being to both the virtual moment of re-union. Whenever "total insensibility takes place, the time during which this continues, whether a single minute or a thousand years, is to the person himself no time at all: in either case, the moment of his reviving must appear to him immediately to succeed that of his sinking into unconsciousness; nor could he possibly be able to tell afterwards whether this state had lasted an hour, a day, or a century."+ *Scripture Revelations of a Future Life. + Physical Theory of Another Life. Scripture Revelations. What eloquence and pathos are blended in the following passage from the Breathings of the Devout Soul, by Bishop Hall: What a comfort it is, O Saviour, that thou art the first fruits of them that sleep! Those, that die in thee, do but sleep. Thou saidst so once of thy Lazarus, and sayest so still of him again: he doth but sleep still. His first sleep was but short; this latter, though longer, is no less true: out of which he shall no less surely awaken, at thy second call; than he did before, at thy first. His first sleep and waking was singular; this latter is the same with ours: we all lie down in our bed of earth, as sure to wake as ever we can be, to shut our eyes. In and from thee, O blessed Saviour, is this our assurance, who art the first fruits of them that sleep. The first handful of the first-fruits was not presented for itself, but for the whole field, wherein it grew the virtue of that oblation extended itself to the whole crop. Neither, didst thou, O blessed Jesu, rise again for thyself only; but the power and virtue of thy resurrection reaches to all thine: so thy chosen vessel tells us, Christ, the first fruits, and afterwards, they that are Christ's at his coming; 1 Cor. xv. 23. So as, though the resurrection be of all the dead, just and unjust, Acts xxiv. 15; yet, to rise by the power of thy resurrection, is so proper to thine own, as that thou, O Saviour, hast styled it, the resurrection of the just: Luke xix. 14; while the rest shall be dragged out of their graves, by the power of thy godhead, to their dreadful judgment. Already, therefore, O Jesu, are we risen in thee; and as sure, shall rise in our own persons. The locomotive faculty is in the head: thou, who art our Head, art risen; we, who are thy members, must and shall follow. Say then, O my dying body, say boldly unto death, Rejoice not over me, O mine enemy, for though I fall, yet I shall rise again: Micah vii. 8. Yea, Lord, the virtue of thy first-fruits diffuseth itself, not to our rising only, but to a blessed immortality of these bodies of ours: for as thou didst rise immortal and glorious, so shall we by and with thee; Who shall change these vile bodies, and make them like to thy glorious body: Phil. iii. 21. The same power that could shake off death, can put on glory and majesty. Lay them down, therefore, O my body, quietly and cheerfully; and look to rise in another hue: thou art born in corruption, thou shalt be raised in incorruption; thou art sown in dishonour, thou shalt be raised in glory; thou art sown in weakness, but shalt be raised in power; 1 Cor. xv. 42, 43. Baron Bunsen, in the second volume of the Divine Government in History, seems to imply that if he recoils from the fleshly resurrection and Judaic millennium of Justin Martyr, he still shares the aspirations of the noblest philosophers elsewhere, and of the firmer believers among ourselves, to a revival of conscious and individual life, in such a form of immortality as may consist with |