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immortality , which appear to have been extremely faint , * and unproductive of useful moral influences , on a supposed separation of an invisible spirit from the body in death , ; aod , perhaps , the principal support of this opinion was those shadowy forms of the dead , which were presented to the minds of survivors in dreams and reveries . But these can
have no external reality , being mere creations of the fancy $ at least such phenomena can in general receive a much more easy and probable explication from this principle * than by having recourse to the theory that the " shades" of those who had once lived were actually in being after decease , and occasionally presented themselves to the view of the
living . This doctrine is , in fact , opposed to the strongest evidences that the nature of the case admits ; it concludes that there is immortality and incorruption in the midst of every sensible indication of death and corruption * It leaves the man in the state of utter dissolution , and concludes that he is in the actual possession of immortal energies . The resurrection of Jesus , on the other hand , presents a series of facts by which the
whole man is preserved from corruption ; fcnd , from the grave , is translated to a spiritual and immortal state . The witnesses of these facts appear to have received every evidence that mortals were capable of receiving , that the same man who had lived and died was now translated to the state of a celestial spirit , from which he would be no more liable to return to that dead and corruptible state whence be had experienced so signal a deliverance .. The translation of the
J > ody , as evinced by its disappearance from the sepulchre , accompanied by the opposite miracle of the manifestation of a cejcstial messenger , who , from an invisible state , now gave ample proofs of his sub * stantial presence ; the ordinary invisibility of Jesus * from this time forward ; and the extraordinary modes in which
he usually withdrew himself frorrj , or presented himself to , the cognizance of mortals ; together with the indubitable proofs of his corporeal presence which jie gave whenever he did present himself to observation , clearly shew that the whole person bad become ordinarily spiritual ; that the same frame which had
* Wbitby , m his note on 2 Tim . i , 10 , has shewn by a series of extracts the state of utter uncertainty and want of faith which prevailed among the Heathen philosophers , and extended to the people in general upon this subject .
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supported animal life , " was cow become the vehicle of a much more refined state of being , thus verifying the words of the Apostle , that there is " a spiritual" as well as . an " animal body * " that being " first which was animal , and afterwards , that which is spiritual ;" but both being the result of that infinite
power which , by means of appropriate organizations , first introduces man into existence , and , when he has made certain advances in the scale of spiritual and moral excellence , provides him with superior instruments of Improvement , and opens to . him new sources for exercise and enjoyment .
But as wliat I am now stating as facts have in several particulars been differently represented , I propose * with your permission , more fully to consider some of them , and to state my reasons for differing from the , interpretations of some Commentators upon the passages . Perhaps the most material are those which relate to the disappearance of Jesus from the view of his enemies , and to his jepeated appearances to his apostles .
That we have no account of the appearance of Jesus to his enemies , except in the single instance of Saul , long after his resurrection , is a circumstance which has given rise to considerable discussion . It has , on the one hand , been represented as a deficiency in the evidence ; while , on the other hand , it has been argued that the effect produced upon his enemies
might have been too overpowering to have been compatible with its moral design ; and that , had it effected the general conversion of the Jewish nation , the whole would have had more the appearance of a worldly affair , and shone forth with less strength of evidence at the present day , than under the actual circumstances . The arguments on either side
proceed on the admission that Jesus was not seen / by any of h ? s enemies at or near the time of his resurrection * r that by some noeans he was withdrawn from their view $ that he was not even seen by thobe . sentinels who were placed at the sepulchre for the expose purpose of taking special custody of the body . Now that it should be removed from a
sepulchre which was secured by an immense stone at its ' mouth , without the observation of those whose Reputation and lives depended on their vigilance , and that but for ' the fourth part of the night " iti which the same persons were on guard , could be effected only by some miracle ; and this being ad mitted , the miracle which they have related is in all probability that which actually transpired .
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47 $ Miscellaneous Correspondence :
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1830, page 470, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2586/page/38/
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