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BIBLICAL CRITICISM.
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Mr . Severn on the State of the Human Beiny after Death , Sir , Harlow , July 15 , 1815 « THE state of a human being after death , and the doctrine of a resurrection , are subjects which cannot fail to interest all thinking people : to help our inquiries , to confirm our
faith in things invisible , and to assist our demotions , not merely to defend -a system , I have remitted to you these thoughts , and I have endeavoured to follow the light wherever I could see it » whether proceeding from the lamp of the philosopher , or the sun of revelation . I would hint that several
things in this paper were suggested by a view , apparently near , of vast eternity , of that universal mortality to which the creatures are subject , and by meditation on the extent of life -and being bv which we are
surrounded , of which we are but atoms , and from which , if we may judge onty by what is apparent , we shall soon be separated . The inferences and remarks in this paper , therefore , you mav consider as the writer ' s
defensive armour ( the best he could get ) against the assaults of infidelity , fanaticism and despair . This armour he has beaten into a shape and adapted ns well as he could to his own
measure at the forge * and with the instruments of the great Apostle of the Gentiles , 1 Cor , xv . In that chapter Paul appears to me to state ,. 1 st , The doctrine of our future existence ; 2 nd . That this doctrine is a matter of
revelation . Srd . That it is confirmed by the resurrection of Jesus Christ . 4 th . That it is a resurrection of the individual , not a creation , but a revivification , ( pardon the term ) a return of life and consciousness ,
constituting the identity of the person . From the 44 th verse of this chapter he reasons analogically , € t it is sown a natural body , it is raised a spiiitual body , " yet his reasoning goes to prove that it is the same substance : his
words are , atfelgErai crtvfAoc ^ X 7 iO V lyei g eroLi acu / x a , itvBv ^ oLTiKov ; £$ -i auJfLO , -J / U ^ xov , xod e $ ~ i ( roS ^ oc , tf' / EVfjuotrixov- " is sown , " * ' it is raised j ^ it is , " " there is a natural body , " lfcu \ Now he had said before , rev . 37 * ** Thou sowest not the body that
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shall be , but bare ( naked ) grain , " o-jtelgeis ' yvpvov tcokkov . The apostle carries this analogy to the doctrine of the resurrection again , ver . 43 , ** It is sown in dishonour , it is raised in glory . " In Luke xxiv , 39 , we have an account of Christ ' s appearance after
the resurrection , when to calm the fears of his disciples , he says , " handle me , and see ; a spirit ( ttvsujxo , ) hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have . ' TlvsvfjLa , then was the word chosen by the evangelist to express the term used by the Jews in
their vernacular tongue , by which to convey the idea of what we call a ghost . As the word pysche , is rendered heart , heartily , you , mind , and life , as well as soul , according to the list of your correspondent , Mr . Jones , p . 241 , and as the term is applied to
a beast , as well as a man , I think we may fairly suppose , that the apostle would take it in the most proper as well as common signification , when he was contrasting the state of a human body as laid in the grave , with the state of the same individual when
raised in incorruptibility . I need not remind your readers that Paul styles a dead body , psychichon soma ; if this term were used in another connexion it would be properly rendered a body animated : here , it certainly means , an organized body made for the purposes of animal life , but deprived d
it . Thus a grain of wheat is a body organized for the purposes of vegetable life , for the preservation of the grain , and its future existence : but every seed hath its own body , that which constitutes the identity , nature and quality . Something within u * hints that we shall in due time and
under other circumstances , be better without that sort of body we now have , and revelation informs us that we shall be raised " a spiritual body . It appears to me , therefore , that there is something essential to my present nature and future being , which God im
has rendered indestructible and - mortal ; which though it does not depend upon the usual animal support * for its existence , yet does wholly *> upon the powerful and constant pw * - vidence of God , for the preservation of its identity and conscUmjuew * 3 *
Biblical Criticism.
BIBLICAL CRITICISM .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1815, page 568, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1764/page/36/
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