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much in our present state as when the body , the mere changing mass of matter , which we thus name , has returned to its original dust Now if , in no proper sense , this indestructible substance can be deprived of its consciousness , in no sense can it be the
subject of a restoration to the conscious existence of a rational nature ; for in that case the resurrection of the body is no more a restoration of the life and being of the man who died , than the resurrection of a lost and buried limb after it has long returned to the dust , and the restoration of it
to the original owner , would be a restoration of that person ' s existence ; for he continued to live without it . The clear idea of the resurrection is , the restored life and consciousness of the individual . This , I think , is
plainly the drift of all the apostle ' s reasonings on this subject in 1 Cor . xv . especially vs . i 6 , 1 7 * 18 : " if the dead rise not , if Christ be not raised , then they also which have fallen asleep in Christ , are perished . " Death , the consequence of sin , still
reigns , your faith is a delusion , but we are in full possession of existence which death itself cannot deprive us of ; our identity will be preserved , though our consciousness may be lost . It strikes me , that the resurrection of
our Lord only confirmed to our satisfaction ( faith ) what God , in the order of nature , had previously determined ; the apostle indeed in this chapter evidently draws his analogy from the order of nature . A clear view of this
truth was necessary to support the minds of suffering Christians in such a world as the present , for taking all ci rcumstances into the account , " if itt this life only we have hope , we are of all men most miserable : " and
" ifthe dead rise not , and Christ is not risen , our faith is vain . " The resurrection is not a creation ; the person who died , is raised , and restored to life , the perfect human being- spiritual and immortal ; yet we cannot suppose that the flesh and bones , the
* flere animal body , will be raisedbo , what is raised is the essence of the being . The pweumatic , or spiritual « ody , I conceive , necessarily exists in every human creature , as constituting Ms essence and preserving his •^ e nt ity , but its consciousness may f * suspended \ this is death : again , rt tuay be restored : this is * renewed
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life . A pure element I suppose to be the substance out of which God has formed the nfvevu . a and I conceive that this element is light . Under certain circumstances it possesses the pysche ; under others , it loses it ,
always to resume it again j and at the last day it will break up the lombs , if confined in them , and the solid rocks , ascend from the caverns of the deep , and every atom , once the spirit of life , with renewed consciousness , shall rise to its native heaven . It is
plain that the words tTvevilcc and 4 ^ % ^ , are both used in our translation of the scriptures , in what is commonly understood to be different significations ; the life , the spirit , the soul , the mind , the person •; but in this chapter , 1 Cor . xv ., each certainly in a definite sense . The
psychean body then will be , the organized body in the present ; state , fitted for a sensient being , yet constantly subject to change ; the pneumatic body , that which is the essential existence , the identification of the person , not to be destroyed by circumstances , the breath of God , the essen * tial flame of life , which cannot be
extinguished except by an immediate act of him who first kindled it . The commmunication of this breath of God to Adam , was the consummatory creative act , without which the
body would have remained a piece of inanimate matter ; this metaphorical breath certainly was no part of the essence of the Deity , but a created substance , like the rest of man ' s
nature . The TrveVfta , or spirit , including the ^ u % ^ or soul , reason in the human being , instinct in the brute , directed , governed or destroyed by the great Soul of the Universe , is , 1 think , superior to all lower agency ; is the powerful executive of nature and of God . This wonderful
substance universally present , and ever in action , constitutes the forms and essential being of all existing worlds and of all rational creatures . It was the opinion of the ancients that the soul was a subtle aether , —light : the
Platonics and Pythagoras taught , that fire , —light , was the natural agent o » r animal spirit actuating the universe and the human being ; Plato supposed something like a ramification of fire , > light , by its rays darting to the extremity of the human frame . Hippo-
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Mr . Severn on the State of the Human Being after Death . 56 Q
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1815, page 569, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1764/page/37/
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