On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
knowledge , or to acquire the favour of God by studying his works and unfolding his wisdom . "—P . 62 . These are the best possible convictions on which to proceed in inquiries of every kind . Our reader will have discovered that our author is eloquent , and will not therefore wonder at our giving the summing up of his various arguments in his words ( with all their typographical emphasis ) rather than our own :
" I conceive that in the progress of this work I have demonstrated , in opposition to prevailing notions , this incontrovertible truth , that all real and absolutely existing beings must exist in space , and bear relations to space and time ; and that I have established , as the most rational belief we can entertain on the subject , that God is the only Spitit in existence ; and that angel and archangel , cherub and seraph , whatever the immortal essence of which they are compounded , are , like man , and all other living creatures
with which we are acquainted , merely organized beings . That our hopes of a future state cannot rest with any certainty upon the existence of a soul , as maintained by the ancient philosophers , but upon our resurrection from death , as announced by Christ , and taught by the evangelists and apostles throughout the whole of the Christian revelation . And , lastly , though the kingdom of heaven , when restricted to the triumphant reign of moral and religious feelings upon earth , may properly be called a spiritual kingdom , yet that the promised heaven of hereafter is not an immaterial world of
immaterial spirits , but a local and substantial portion of the universe , peopled by visible , tangible , active and sociable beings , the more pure , intelligent , permanent , resplendent , and powerful , in proportion as their organization and essence are refined , exalted and imperishable ; and that , with the exception of God himself , who is a Spirit , and whose incommunicable essence no creature can participate , all living beings , in their gradations from the highest class to the lowest , bear a semblance or relation , either intimate or remote , to each other ; that as planet resembles planet , and sun resembles sun , so
universe resembles universe throughout the creation ; and whether those universes roll round a void , or round some mighty orb in the centre of all , which may constitute the highest empyrean—the more immediate dwellingof God—the seat of his visible glories , still that nature , in all its varieties of worlds and beings , is , like its Creator , but one—exemplifying in all its complication of arrangements , however minute or stupendous , an unity of design , the simple , the uniform , the exquisite result of an infinite , all-gracious , omniscient , omnipotent Mind . "—P . 95 .
No part of this little work is more satisfactory than the section in which the scriptural evidence for and against a separate soul is collected and weighed . It is perfectly clear that the nature of this evidence has been widely mistaken , as much through an excessive attachment to our common translation of the Scriptures , as through ignorance of the Jewish superstitions . Change spirit into breath , soul into life , hell into hades , and paradise into a garden of rest , as often as they might fairly be so changed , and what becomes of the evidence for the doctrine so long and pertinaciously held as a part of Christianity ? With one more extract , containing a suggestion , of whose value our readers will judge for themselves , we conclude :
• ' With this history of the word Paradise before us , we may reasonably doubt that the modern sense of the word had ever been applied to it in the time of our Saviour . The sense in which he used it in tfiat singular and often-quoted text , Luke xxiii . 43 , remains now to be investigated . * And one , of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him , saying , If thou be Christ , save thyself and us : but the other answering rebuked him—and said unto Je » u « , Lord , remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom : and
Untitled Article
228 Physical Considerations connected with Man ' s Ultimate Destination ,
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1831, page 228, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2596/page/12/
-