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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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Untitled Article
mitted by its author to future generations ; and that spirit , guided and cherished by the protecting providence of God , will go on , as we believe and trust , increasing in purity and strength through all the future channels by which it is destined to be distributed to the remotest corners of the earth . One word as to the nature of the fact itself . Why should it be considered incredible , when supported by competent testimony ? Is there not a
power in the universe adequate to its production ? How else shall we account for the original creation of the human race ?—a fact in itself as stupendous , and as much disconnected from foregoing circumstances , as the resurrection—and yet the certainty of which may indisputably be inferred from the most conspicuous phenomena of the globe that we inhabit . Those who embrace the doctrines of natural religion and hope for a future life , must admit the oossibilitv of transference of individual consciousness to a \ \ i iiv j
a uiuoi clVjUU 11 ilic uvyooiuuiiy ji a iiausiciitiiV / t ji muiviuuai n , v * hov « juwi .-u « w «* new system of organization : and may not this transferrence be a change which , though invisible to us , does constantly take place on the dissolution of our present bodies by death , and form a permanent law of that region of the spiritual universe which is placed beyond the sphere of our present experience ? And if this transferrence of consciousness be conceived of as possible , why should not the restoration of it , after a short interval , to its
previous system of organization , be equally admitted to be possible ; and thus the resurrection be merely the visible manifestation to our world of the operation of a law which is continually taking place in the unseen and spiritual world ; a manifestation ordained by the Cause of causes for the best of purposes , and in perfect harmony with the great final object of his universal providence , the education of mind , and the advancement of the virtue and happiness of the human race ?
It will be objected , that such an event is a deviation from the usual course of God ' s providence , and is therefore incredible . But such an objection implies , that our present knowledge of the laws of nature must limit the range of possibility . For aught we can now prove to the contrary , such apparent deviations may be only parts of some great system , as yet unknown to us , the exemplification of a law affecting the whole spiritual creation , but too vast and too comprehensive to fall within the survey and be subject to
the calculations of the shortsighted inhabitants of a transitory planet like ours . Beings , who had never witnessed nor heard of more than one comet or one eclipse , would doubtless regard them as violations of the established order of nature , and call such appearances miraculous : whereas we now know , from longer experience , that they are essential parts of the general economy of creation , and depend on causes as determinate as those which influence the tides of the ocean and the course of the seasons * The same
we may hereafter find to be the case with the resurrection , and with those other wonderful events by which God in different ages and under various dispensations has specially helped forward the moral and religious progress of the human species . In a future world , we may possibly be enabled to trace the mysterious ties which link the present initiatory existence of man with the higher laws of the spiritual universe , and connect it with the nobler functions and capacities of a state that has yet to be revealed .
Still it will be asked by the pertinacious objector , why , if an event so important as that of the visible resurrection of a human being from the dead ever took place — why is not the evidence of it more decisive and complete ?
* Some excellent observations on this subject will be found at the close of the third Letter in Bishop Watson ' s Apology for Christianity addressed to Mr . Gibbon .
Untitled Article
152 On the Evidence of the Resurrection ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1831, page 152, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2595/page/8/
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