[142]. See Quest. [lxxxviii], [lxxxix].
[143]. The doctrines of the immortality of the soul, and of the resurrection of the body equally rest upon the will and word of God. But when viewed with the eye of natural reason, they have been deemed to possess very unequal grounds of probability. The properties of matter and of mind are so very different, they have been distinguished by almost all. If the mind be not matter, no argument for its extermination can be drawn from the dissolution of the body; and as its materiality has never been shown, no premises have been found from which its death can be inferred. Some wise men who had not the scriptures, have indeed withholden their belief; but the reason is discernible, they have demanded proofs which the God of nature has not vouchsafed; and their rejection of the preponderating evidence of probability, argues weakness and fastidiousness.
The resurrection of the body has been held to be impossible. If so, the impossibility should either consist in the absolute incapacity in the dead body to be raised; but this it does not, for death can only reduce the body to its first element, and the dust which has been a body is not any more unfit to be reanimated, than it was to receive life in the first instance; or it must be owing to some detect of wisdom or power, or of both in him, who should raise the body; but God is unchangeable, and in all respects as able to raise him from the dead, as to create man at the first; and there is no contradiction implied in the thing, which should prevent the exertion of his power; a resurrection is therefore possible.
The usual arguments for its probability drawn from analogy to the return of day, of spring, of vegetation, &c. are not conclusive. But those drawn from the resurrection of Christ, from the identity of man considered as a compound from the removal of moral evil, from which natural evils arise, from the earnest expectation of animal nature for a better condition, and from the perfection of the future state, seem to raise a presumption which is probable; yet these are not appreciated by the natural man; hence the world has so generally denied a resurrection of the body.
The testimony of the Holy Spirit on both points has been always the same, but not with equal lustre.
Jesus Christ explicitly affirmed both, and brought his proofs from the old testament, pressed them as motives of comfort or terror to saints and sinners, and so connected their truth with that of his own character, that every thing which proves the latter, is a proof of the former. Not only did his actually raising the dead, and arising himself, prove that the dead shall rise, but every prophecy accomplished in him, and every miracle wrought by him and his apostles, the continuance of his church, the purity of his system of doctrines, the doctrines of election, redemption, justification, regeneration and perseverance, as well as the express declarations on this subject, both in the old and new testament, all form a solid mass of evidence upon which the hopes of the Christian may firmly rest.
[145]. See Dr. Edward’s exercit. Part II. on 1 Cor. iii. 15. who, to give countenance to this opinion, produces two scriptures, viz. Mark xiv. 54. and Luke xxii. 56. where the word φως, is put for fire; from whence he supposes, that φως and πυρ, are used promiscuously.
[146]. Κολπος. Sinus, a bosom, coast, or haven.
[147]. Vid. Tertull. Apologet. Cap. xlvii. Et si paradisum nominemus, locum divinæ amænitatis recipiendis sanctorum spiritibus destinatum, materia quadem igneæ illius Zonæ segregatum.