that bleffed hope, even the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jefus Chrift, when he shall come again to raise the dead and judge the world. When our Saviour fays that he will receive the apostles to himself, he refers them to the fame time, and nothing prior to it. John xiv. 3, I will come again, and take you to myself, that where I am there ye may be also. When, therefore, the apostle Paul speaks of being abfent from the body and prefent with the Lord, he must have meant the fame great period, overlooking all that paffed between the time of his death and his refurrection, which indeed will only appear as a moment: as in the cafe of a man awaking from a profound fleep.

When Mofes describes the formation of man, he represents him as made wholly, and not in part only, of the duft of the ground, and fays after this, God put breath and life into him, thereby giving motion to the curious machine, which was before a lifeless mass. It is to this doctrine of Mofes that our Saviour refers when he fays that God is able to deftroy both body and foul, or the power of life, in hell. For the word that is here rendered foul, is elsewhere rendered life, meaning that men,

by killing the body, which God has been pleased to put in their power, cannot prevent its returning to life, this being in the power of God only. There is not, in reality, any more reason to suppose life to be a real fubftance, than death, which we nevertheless personify, when we fay that death comes, and Surprifes men, and takes them. In the fcriptures, both death and fin are perfonified.

The Gnoftics, who were the first of the philofophers who embraced Christianity, could not diveft themselves of their prejudices with respect to matter, as the fource of all evil; and thinking it the happiest state of the foul, to be entirely detached from it, they explained away the doctrine of the refurrection, as to be understood of fomething that took place during life. To them the apostle Paul alludes when he says, 2 Tim. ii. 18, that they erred concerning the faith; faying that the refurrection was paft already, and overturned the faith of fome. Juftin Martyr, the first Christian writer after the apoftolic age whose works are come down to us, enumerating the particular tenets of the Gnoftics, who were deemed to be heretics, and not allowed to be properly Chriftians, fays of them, Dial. p. 2, They

66

"alfo

alfo fay that there is no refurrection of the "dead, but that immediately after death "fouls are received into heaven. Do not "take these to be Chriftians."

This language of this ancient and venerable writer is not a little remarkable. Think not, however, that I approve of his harsh cenfure of the Gnoftics. Others will fay that they who reject the doctrine of a foul are not Christians. Both are equally reprehenfible. The Gnoftics, as well as Juftin, believed the divine miffion of Jefus, and a life of retribution after death, and many of them were martyrs as well as himself. The doctrine of a future life is the most important article of Chriftian faith. The time, the place, or the manner, in which it will be effected, are all comparatively of little moment.

Though after this Chriftians in general adopted the doctrine of a foul distinct from the body, they thought that, after death, it remained in a place underground, called Hades, where it waited for the refurrection of the body, when, and not before, it would be admitted to the immediate prefence of God and of Chrift, in heaven. This continued to be the faith of the Chriftian world for about a thoutand

N 4

thousand years. They pretty foon, however, made an exception in favour of the fouls of the martyrs, which they thought went directly to heaven.

There are thought to be fome traces of the doctrine of a refurrection in the heathen world, as among the Chaldeans and Zabians, But if this were the cafe, the doctrine was foon obliterated, and fpeculative persons, thinking a proper refurrection to be absolutely impoffible, and yet unwilling to give up all hope of fome future ftate, imagined that there was fome fpiritual, or ethereal, principle in man, which having existed long before his birth, would fubfift after his death. For with the heathens these two doctrines always went together; and Origen, one of the most learned of the early Chriftians, believed both the pre-existence of the foul, and its feparate exiftence after death. Afterwards Chriftians in general abandoned the former, but retained the latter, though originally they were both derived from the fame fource.

But what evidence is there, from any appearances in nature, which is all that the heathens had to look to, on which their belief either of the pre-existence or the separate ex

istence

iftence of the foul is founded.

The former

will be allowed to have been wholly chimerical. But with refpect to the latter, it is not evident that the power of thinking depends upon the brain; and if thought is fufpended in the state of sound sleep, and during a fwoon, muft it not be more effectually fufpended in a state of death?

It will be faid that we cannot conceive of any connection between the properties of perception, or thought, and the idea of matter. But we know nothing at all of the connection of any properties with those of any subftance whatever. Who can explain the connection between the magnet and the property of attracting iron, or the cause of the gravitation of all material fubftances towards each other? And what clearer ideas have we of the connection between the power of perception and thought with an immaterial substance any more than with a material one? Let us then no longer cover our ignorance, or our fancied knowledge, with the repetition of mere words, to which we have no ideas, but confine ourselves to known facts, fuch as the ftrict connection between the powers of thought and the organization of the brain.

When