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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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tion is not less evident when the human frame is much relaxed and disordered . Upon the hypothesis of the mere junction of a reasonable soul with perishable matter , and its surviving the dissolution of it , how are we
to account for the gradual expansion and maturity of intellect ? If one be essentially independent of the other , by what process are they mutually affected ? Metaphysicians may busy themselves in this inquiry , and produce hypotheses as various as the moulds in
which the human mind is cast ; but all must end in conjecture , however profound their disquisitions . Whereas , on the principles of materialism , the subject is simply and satisfactorily wound up , and without , in the slightest degree , touching our belief of a future existence . What is there in the
popular doctrine of the separate existence and survivorship of the soul more credible , more comprehensible , or more consoling , than in the rival doctrine , namely , that although the
soul , the mind , the perceptive or conscious faculty , ( no matter what terms philosophers apply to it , ) be the result of a subtle organization of the human frame , and must expire with it ; yet that God ' s assurance of our
revivification is as safe a rock of dependence , as any assurance would be that the souls which animate our bodies are distinct and imperishable ? How are we , to any serious purpose , concerned
in the question that has been so vehemently agitated ; with the mode in which God has decreed to prolong or renew our existence ; or , indeed , with any thing but the evidence of his promise of a resurrection to a future life ?
If , as we are told , it be impossible for mind to be a result of any organization of matter , ( which is a pretty bold assertion , considering who is the architect of 6 ur frames , and the
chemist who amalgamates their materials !) how come brutes by the sentient principle , and in degrees almost as various as men possess it ? Have they souls , in tli £ popular acceptation of the term ? Are their spirits too imperishable ?
The text prefixed to this paper may seem in its terms to indicate the broad distinction contended for ; but their meaning should be sought in their connexion . It asserts nothing , it
implies' nothing , concerning the source , spiritual or material , whence what is
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called the soul is derived . Jesus , we know , was in the habitual use of lan - guage accommodated to the notions prevalent among his countrymen—as in the instance of demoniacs . It was an opinion of the Pharisees , the
predominant sect , that the soul was distinct and immortal , and to be dealt with , after his demise , according to the tenour of a man ' s life ; and the words used on the present occasion appear to fall in , though partially , with their conception of the subject . The great article of the Christian revelation is a resurrection from the state of
death to a renewed existence . The current hypothesis made the soul , though in union with the body , indestructible . But , in adverting to the power which human governments assume of inflicting the penalty of death , Jesus would have his disciples regard
that power with comparative indifference , and be apprehensive of nothing but the displeasure of his Father , who could withhold the gift of eternal life , and suffer them to perish without resuscitation ; for destruction in hell ( Gehenna , the place where carcases were consumed by fire ) can only be
figurative , I apprehend , of total extinction * Taking the words in this sense , 1 understand the power of destroying the soul to signify that of extinguishing every posthumous hope ; and , so understood , the text may be thus paraphrased : — " Fear not them which kill the body , but are not able to affect the future life , which it is the
purpose of my mission to announce , and which the Father only can deprive those of , who shall be found unworthy of it . " I would , ^ however , propose this with diffidence * ; for in the whole circle of theology there is not perhaps any one subject from which the spirit of dogmatizing ought more carefully to be excluded .
There is another passage in which our Saviour uses the word soul , certainly not in the distinctive and exclusive sense . He makes the prospering man soothe himself thus , Luke xii . 19 : €€ 1 will say to my soul , Soul , tbou
hast much goods laid up for many years : take thine ease , eat , drink and be merry . " Saying this to his soul was but soliloquising to himself . The soul , if incorporeal , could neither eat nor drink , however merry it might be ; and this application of the term suffix
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526 Brief Note * on the Bible . No . XVIII .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1821, page 526, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2504/page/22/
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