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t " a « this principle is called matter or spirit ? spirit may merely mean a finer kind or different sort of patter : upon this point" I have no dispute with the materialist , I know nothing about it , and it is of no importance in the
controversy . The resurrection may probably he a mere natural process . The scriptural account ol ' a resurrection and a future life , should not be understood in too literal a sense : it is
evidently adapted to the ordinary conceptions of mankind ; the doctrine of future punishment is always considered in this light , for who is there now that believes the wicked will be literally punished with fire and brimstone ? So the
notion of a simultaneous resurrection , or of all mankind being raised at one time and together , does not appear to me to be so easily proved from scripture as most people imagine . Thatlhe whole man is not
dissipated at death , but that some part of him continues to live after the death of the body , seems to be supported by the language of Christ , Matthew x . 28 . and Luke
xii . 4 . " Pear not them who kill the body , but are not able to kill the soul / ' They are not able to kill the soul . If the dissolution
at the body did unavoidably draw to the death of the soul , if soul and bod y die together-, or if , as the materialist maintains , man W no soul , there would be no se in our Lord ' s words : the death of the soul wo ft Id be as touch in the power of man as that of the body . But it is evident that our Lord was of a different
? P * mon , otherwise he would not , "Ulie fine parable of Dives and r ^ &rus , have represented the nc [ * man as wishing 10 be sent to
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Against Materialism .- —Letter 11 . 455
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his brethren , then living on the earth , to warn them to escape his torment . Nay , our Saviour seems to say , that while the body was carried to the grave , the soul of Lazarus was carried by angels into Abraham ' s bosom , and the soul of the other into a place of torment . Luke xvi . It is readily admilted that this is a parable ? but is it more reasonable to sup * pose it consistent with fact , or founded in falsehood , intended to instruct , or to mislead and deceive ; nothing could be more artfully contrived , or more effectually calculated to deceive than this parable , if there is not a part of man which survives the stroke of death .
hi Luke xx . 37 , 38 . our Lord asserts that the patriarchs live to God . Surely he does not mean that they only live to God in some such sense as that in which those
who are now living may be said to be dead to God , because at some future time they shall die . Surely our Lord meant something more than this : he mentions it-as
a proof that the dead are ?* aised , not merely that they will be at some future time . His doctrine is that the dead are raised , and that the patriarchs live to God , A ml vv e m a y i i » f < r fro rn < > \ i r Lo rd s words , that though our friends arc dead to us and to this world , yet , that they live to God in the
world invisible , for , he says , all live to GW . That there is a something in man which survives the dissolution of the corporeal frame , seems to be supported from , our Lord ' s wards to the penitent thief , who id the agony of death supplicates our Saviour with , fc 6 Lord , remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom / ' The holy and benevolent Jesus , in
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1811, page 455, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2419/page/7/
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