of the fame paffages, more folid perhaps, or at least equally ingenious? Shall it fuperfede the authority of a very great number of texts too clear and explicit to be oppofed by any thing but general affertions, bold denials, flat 'contradictions, and the artifice of fubtilization? Shall it thake the faith of ages, and nullify the doctrine of the catholic Church?

And, after all, in this, as in the cafe of the Trinity, we are in effect only called upon to exchange 'one Creed for another. Thefe fqueamish Gentlemen who know not how to digeft the wholfome doctrines of the Gospel, expect us to fwallow with greediness a kind of fpiritual Noftrum, prepared by human imagination. It is true, Dr. S. with all the effrontery of quackery, would make us believe his dofe may be taken without any fort of inconvenience. For he roundly afferts, that *"the refurrection of the dead is no ways liable

to any of the difficulties which the other "notion MAY be liable to." Now whatever difficulties

difficulties our notion may be liable to, I ask, whether that of the Doctor has not at first fight its peculiar difficulties? Indeed it will ftand clear of all, if we answer the following queries fuitably to the confidence with which he propofes them. May there not be a refurrection of the dead, fays he, without "the refurrection of flesh? May not the dead perfon be raised to life, and have a body "given to him, fuitable to the place he is "to have? May not the thinking conscious "perfon be restored, though he has not that "reftored which has no thought, nor consci"oufness belonging to it?" To the first of these three queftions I anfwer abfolutely

No. A refurrection of the dead, supposes a refurrection of flesh. To the fecond and third I make free to reply with a few questions in my turn; and defire to afk, whether, when the graves and the fea fhall give up the dead, they will not give up what was put into them? Was this the body, or was it the foul? Or, if by a resurrection of the dead we are only to understand our being invefted with a new

body,

body, with what shadow of sense is this styled a refurrection? Or, if there is fenfe and propriety in the term, may we not fairly ask, from whence is this body to come? (dd) If thought, or consciousness conftitutes perfon, can thought or confcioufnefs die? If not, what are we to understand by a thinking con"scious perfon's being restored?" Restored! From whence? Or to what? (ee) In short, whatever becomes of man after death, whatever may be the nature of the intermediate state, what notion can we form of thought's rifing from the dead, or the refurrection of confciousness? Men will advance inconfif-tences, and affert paradoxes fooner than believe as the Church would have them. (ff)

This notion of a thinking perfon's being reftored does indeed correfpond well enough with an opinion maintained with much earneftness some years fince by certain Divines,* who held, that during the ftate between death and the last day, the foul will fleep, as

it were, and all the rational powers be fufpended. I fhall not enter into the merits of their arguments. It will be fufficient to say, that these writers fuppofed the reunion of the Soul to the body at the day of judgment; and confequently, according to their notion, (for argument's fake admitting it,) the refloration of the Soul to its powers, &c. and the refurrection of the dead, are very different things.

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Again if we believe the Apostle's account, the inftantaneous change which is to be effected in us at the refurrection will be from natural to spiritual, from corruptible to incorruptible; but we fhall look in vain for fuch a change under any other hypothefis. They who infift, that our fouls fhall be united to new bodies may be allowed to suppofe fuch bodies will be fpiritual, as St. Paul fpeaks, and incorruptible; but will they not be hard put to it to prove that thefe ever were natural, or corruptible? Or does this Apoftle's illustration of the doctrine before us by the fimilitude of feed fown, which is not quickened except it die, convey the least idea

of

and

of a foul's awaking from sleep, and in a moment as it were recovering the ufe of all its faculties? Surely this cannot be the mystery which the inspired writer hews us in this chapter. But, according to our fenfe, the Apoftolical comparifon is as apt and happy as poffible. The bare grain is fown, diffolves, appears again under a new modification. So alfo is the refurrection of the dead. The body is fown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is fown in difhonour, it is raised in glory. It is fown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is forn a natural body, it is raifed a fpiritual body; a body fubtilized and purified; a body difencumbered from that flesh and blood which cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and, to adopt the high figuring of St. Paul, clothed upon with an houfe from heaven, and arrayed with immortality. And, all this while, in both cafes, God giveth a body as it pleafeth him, and to every feed, and to every individual, his own body.

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