And, it is worthy of notice, that the transfiguration, whereat Moses and Elijah were made to appear before the eyes of the three disciples, in no way destroys our argument, that, when the body is separated from the spirit, the spirit cannot perceive, or be perceived; because we have in one of these cases, proof; and in the other, a strong presumption, that the body was not separated from the spirit. We are informed of Elijah, that he did not die. And although Moses died, there was something very unusual about the circumstances of his burial, in that no man assisted at it (Deut. xxxiv. 6). In the valuable epistle of Jude, we are told that Michael and the devil disputed about the body of Moses; and, if we think Michael succeeded, we must then also conclude that Moses escaped the power of Satan, and the corruption to which he subjects other men. So that the bodies of these two great prophets were preserved, uncorrupted, in some locality, and might, of course, be reproduced, as at the transfiguration.

We are aware, moreover, that some persons will think of the phænomena of Mesmerisim, as contradicting our assertion that spirit must communicate with spirit, through the intervention of matter. Of these phænomena (whether real or not), we know but little. Nevertheless, if our opinion be correct, that they are not supposed, even by Mesmerists, to be independent of all material media, but only of our usual organs of sense, they do not (though they be real) contravene our argument; especially as we believe that the more scientific advocates of animal magnetism are so impressed with the need of material intercourse, that they assume the existence of a subtle fluid, called Odyle, along which the magnetic influence is conveyed. And Somnambulism, or what is called divided consciousness, instead of proving a conscious existence, while the operation of the body is removed, does rather prove the direct contrary. Because, however we account for the sleeping man seeming to have a different consciousness from the waking man, yet the waking man preserves no recollection of his state during his absence from the body.

Now, while we may not obtain any definite ideas of the state of death, and of the mode of resurrection, there are certain reflections which may remove a part of the difficulties. It would appear from the constant language of scripture, that man consists of body, soul, and spirit. The body and the spirit being brought together, do not constitute a living creature until the soul (xn, or principle of life) is breathed in by God's direct action. At death, this soul, or ux, is recalled by God; the connection between body and spirit is then severed; the body corrupts and dissolves, and leaves

• See Gen. ii. 7; Job xxxiii. 4; Isaiah ii. 22; and 1 Cor. xv. 45.

the spirit, not only without clothing, but without organs, until, by reason of the victory which our Lord has obtained over Satan, the body (the same body of the same spirit) has the x again breathed into it, and the spirit becomes again a sentient, and intelligent, and perceptive being. From whatever source the material atoms (composing the restored body) be gathered, the presence of the former spirit will make it identical with the former body; for it is not the conformation of the very same particles of matter that constitutes identity; as we know that not one of us has the same particles in his body now as he had a few years ago, and yet he is identical with his former self, and is recognized as such.

It might be supposed from 1 Cor. xv. 44 and 45, that the ux in the regenerated man is no longer to be the principle of life, because St. Paul says that the body is sown a oμx Juxinov, but raised a σῶμα πνευματικόν, and that the one of these bodies is not the same as the other. He says moreover in allusion to Gen. ii. 7, the first Adam became a living ux, but the last Adam a lifeproducing spirit, and that the spiritual was to succeed the uxov. We know also that in other places (as at 1 Cor. ii. 14; James iii. 15; Jude 19), these two descriptions of men denote respectively the religious and the irreligious. So that the future glorified body may possibly have no ux (or soul), but the regenerated spirit be to it the immortal principle of life.

However, without pronouncing upon this abstruse question, we may see clearly enough that in no place of scripture is either of these immaterial portions of man put for the man himself. He is never mentioned as the object of God's dealings, unless his body be supposed to be joined with his spirit. At the same time, if the identity of the future body must be established by its junction with the former spirit, then this spirit has some intermediate existence, which cannot be, properly speaking, sentient, and may be purely quiescent.

Modern medical experiments have shown that we can detach the immaterial part of man entirely from his body, and may do anything with this isolated body, without creating any perception in the man. We might cut away and mutilate the body until we destroyed (or removed) the ux, and then, no art of ours could reconnect the body with the spirit. The body, having lost the principle of life, would dissolve and disappear. At the resurrection, God will recall the identical body (identical, we repeat, not because possesses the same atoms, but because it belongs to the same spirit), and will give life to it, either by again breathing the un into it, or by giving to the spirit its acquired life-producing qualities.

it

In the striking phænomena of chloroform, it is certain that man

has the ability to take the spirit from the body, and also to restore it; but he may not trifle with the ux; he may not take that away, without consigning the body to corruption, never to be recovered, except by God's immediate agency. Perhaps the only difference between restoration from the effects of chloroform and from the effects of death, may be, that in the former case, the spirit returns, unchanged, to the body unimproved; whereas, in the resurrection, the spirit, having become a life-giving spirit, comes back to a better and more glorious body.

We cannot help thinking that the notion of a Hades, full of sentient, but incorporeal beings, is of Pagan growth ;—that when the resurrection of the body had been forgotten, the belief in the immortality of the man remained. The Magian and Gnostic philosophy, which depreciated the body, and represented it as incapable of amelioration (when joined to the strong impression that man was fit for a more extended life than he enjoyed in his first body), gave rise to the fable of Hades, of Elysium, and of Tartarus, which passed into the Jewish, as well as, subsequently, into the Christian creed, from the close contact and influence of Persia.

However, while thus offering some suggestions for the re-consideration of the Intermediate State, we have no hesitation in agreeing with the doctrine advocated by the three authors we are now reviewing ;-viz., that the final reward is not conferred at the instant of death, but is reserved until Christ shall come in power and great glory. Indeed, we suspect that the vulgar phraseology of going at once to bliss, comes only from forgetting the great revelation of the Bible,-the destiny of man's body to be the tabernacle of the Holy Ghost.

And this phraseology-the expression of 'going to Heaven is held by many to be not only unscriptural in its application to the moment of death, but to be altogether an error, for which there is no foundation. It is urged that Christ promised to return to us, and that he said nothing about our going to heaven to meet Him. It is affirmed that the Bible is silent on the subject of the end of the world (xóoμos), that it speaks merely of the termination of the age (iv). St. Peter does, it is true, predict that the heavens and the earth which are now, are reserved unto fire, and that the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements melt with fervent heat. But there appears an obvious answer to all this, in that the perishing by fire may only imply a change of form, as did the perishing by water (with which St. Peter compares it), and that the apostle himself says, that after this great fire we may look for a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righte

ousness.

And Mr. Heath aptly quotes a distinction made by Joseph

VOL. III.-NO. V.

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Mede between mundus continens, or xosuos, the world, and mundus contentus, or the inhabitants of the world, and points out the strong reasons there are for supposing that the predicted destruction is only applicable to the latter. Nay, we may find many expressions, not only in this very chapter of St. Peter (iii. 7, 11), but in other parts of scripture (Zech. xii. 6; Malachi iv. 1, 2; 2 Thes. ii. 8; Rev. xiv. 9-11), where the burning seems evidently to be confined to those who resist the power of Christ. Moreover, if Christ's work on earth be to overthrow Satan and to recover the world from the evil to which the Great Enemy has subjected it, the victory will appear incomplete and slight, when the frame-work of the world is annihilated, and the unsaved left in Satan's grasp.

But among those who believe in our future heaven being placed upon this renovated earth, there is an important difference of opinion. Some, like Mr. Faber, hold that the conflagration will be not only literal, but universal also, utterly changing both the form and constitution of the earth, accompanied by the real second coming of the Lord, and immediately preceded by the great outburst of wickedness, spoken of in the book of Revelation as the unchaining of Satan for a season; the holy being snatched up into the air, to meet the Lord (1 Thes. iv. 17), and so to escape the suffering of that fire. This scheme, which we think is scarcely distinguishable from the popular opinion, is, however, objected to for two principal reasons. 1st. It is affirmed by chemists that the bulk of this earth's matter has already been oxidized, and is therefore incapable of burning, in the sense of Mr. Faber's hypothesis. 2nd. By taking this conflagration to be contemporary with Christ's coming, no interpretation can be given to our Lord's promise that his advent should be unexpected by the wicked, who would be pursuing their ordinary avocations, and that he would call all his servants, good and bad, and reckon with them according to what they had done. It is hardly to be understood how this prediction can be reconciled with the theory that his good servants are first to be removed from the presence of his coming.

Let us add, that St. Peter's account of the final conflagration, unless it be understood figuratively, stands by itself. Our Saviour, with all the apostles and the prophets, never speaks of the world, but only of Christ's enemies, being destroyed. The analogy from the rest of the Bible would lead us rather to expect a terrible judgment upon the adherents of Satan, purifying the earth from them, as similar judgments removed the wicked from the old world, and the polluted city of Sodom from the land of Canaan. Especially does the prophecy of Zechariah look like a decided contradiction of the theory of a universal destruction happening to all who are not carried off into the upper regions of the heavens. The prophet, in

speaking of the last siege of Jerusalem, says expressly that only half of the people should go into captivity, and that the residue should not be cut off from the city (xiv. 2), but that they should be helped by the overthrow of the enemy, and so Jerusalem made safely habitable. This chapter seems not to harmonize with the expectation that Christ will first carry his saints from the earth, and then burn up and remodel the earth for them to inhabit; while the wicked, together with the hosts of Satan, shall, after the conflagration, be confined within the bowels of this same earth, in a huge and secure dungeon, called Gehenna in the Gospel, and the fiery lake in the Apocalypse.

Now, Mr. Heath's view is entirely different. He lays great stress upon the implied doctrine of Scripture, that Christ is always supposed to restore mankind to the condition they would have occupied if Adam had not fallen, viz., a sinless condition in a terrestrial locality. He believes that, at the great day and final overthrow of Satan, man will be put into much the same position as he occupies now; excepting that all external temptation will be removed, and that he will be rendered capable of a continually increasing goodness and happiness by the unimpeded influence of Christ and his atonement. He expects, equally with other restorationists, a great confederacy of godlessness at the end of the millennium, which Christ will overthrow and for ever render powerless. This overthrow may be effected by a terrible volcanic eruption, that shall not only destroy the enemies that are beleaguering Christ's servants, but very materially change the surface of the globe, and perhaps literally remove the sea (Rev. xxi. 1); thus affording room for all the generations of men that have ever lived, raised to judgment at that time; and placed nearer to Jerusalem (the city of the great king), or farther from it, according to the issue of that judgment.

It will doubtless be alleged that the records of the early Christian church show that this expectation was present in the minds of those who were nearest to the original propagators of the Gospel; and that it was the reason why they could leave all things for the coming reward, the nature of which, while entirely terrestrial, they could understand and appreciate. It may be also said that, to arrive at a consistent view of Christ's mission, we ought to suppose that he will eventually introduce the same kind of happiness as he would have given to the world, if they had not been sinful and ignorant enough to reject him. If, then, his first invitation to mankind was that they should be terrestrially happy under his sovereignty, why should we invent another species of happiness altogether, on his return to do what the sin of men has so long interrupted?