that forlorn hope. Now by far the greater part of mankind on your system are saved by death, which has generally been considered the destroyer, rather than the Savior of men. The heathen and all who die impenitent, are brought to the fruition of boundless felicity at the moment of death; and that not because they have repented of the sins they have committed-not because they have exercised genuine faith in the Lord Jesus-not because they have obtained that knowledge which is life eternal-nay, not because Jesus was appointed as a Savior; but because they have been slain by a law of nature in which Christ has no agency. I might go still farther, and say, as no man is fully saved or brought from his formed state, while in the body, so Christ is not, in strictness of speech, the Savior of any human being, but all are saved by a physical law of nature. Your position that death frees the soul from sin, supersedes the means of the gospel. The Scriptures assure us that unless we repent, and are converted, we cannot enter heaven. But what has repentance to do with the salvation of multitudes on your scheme? If death places a man beyond the reach of pain, and introduces him into heaven, there is no repentance in the case. He is saved, not because he has repented of his sins, but because death has snatched him to glory. Thus do your views appear to set aside the scheme of salvation by Christ. To avoid this difficulty, perhaps you may say that men are not saved by death, but by divine instruction imparted by Christ after death. Then let us hear no more of the boasted assertions, that the soul is necessarily happy at death; that our appetites and passions being destroyed, sin and its consequences must necessarily cease; and that death places us beyond the reach of pain. If men are saved by being instructed after death, the main ground of the controversy is changed, and the arguments on which you have mostly relied, given up. If this position is urged, the other, viz. that death places us beyond the reach of pain, is relinquished. Now I ask proof of the assertion, that Christ will instruct all sinners in a moment at death, in such a manner as to qualify them for immediate felicity. I ask for one single text which asserts that men, who die in confirmed wickedness, will be totally changed in the instant of death; raised from the lowest state of moral corruption to that of immaculate purity. If men are saved by being instructed after death, then they do not escape all misery in a future state; for a process of instruction necessary to qualify the mind for the enjoyment of happiness, must of course, require a period of time for its accomplishment; and during this period the creature must be more or less unhappy. An infinite mind may grasp infinite knowledge in a moment; but finite minds are incapable of this. They obtain their knowledge by degrees. It requires but little knowledge of the human mind to know that all information is acquired in a gradual manner by finite beings as we are. This remark will meet your approbation; for you say, "I would further argue, that, as man is constituted to enjoy happiness on moral principles, to the knowledge of which principles we come by degrees, it is as reasonable to believe that all men were intended to obtain a consummate knowledge of the moral principles of their nature, as that any of Adam's race were."* this passage you admit that a consummate knowledge of moral principles is requisite to qualify the mind for complete happiness, and that this knowledge is acquired in a gradual manner. In Again you say, "Man exists on such a principle as renders him capable of improving in knowlege and • Atou. p. 183. happiness, which he obtains by experience. We send our children to school for the purpose of learning that of which they are ignorant; and it is by degrees that those sciences are obtained. Men begin their moral existence in the same way-but as fast as they become taught, they conform to the divine rules of their Master."* Here again you admit that men are saved by knowledge which is gradually acquired, being obtained by experience, in the same way in which children obtain a knowledge of science, and that men conform to their divine Master no faster than their knowledge increases. According to your own acknowledgment, therefore, men cannot be completely happy, till they arrive at consummate knowledge; and this must require a considerable period of time, for you assert that this knowledge is acquired by degrees. Now, Sir, to affirm that those who die in confirmed ignorance and wickedness, will be consummately wise and perfectly pure the instant after death, is to speak without scripture authority, and to contradict every just principle of philosophy, and your own express declaration. That men will be thus instantly changed at death in a moral point of view, the scriptures give us not the least intimation. Beside, this view of salvation is the reverse of that taught in the scriptures. The sacred writers assure us that without faith it is impossible to please God, for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.† But if the vilest sinners are brought in an instant into the presence of God, where they must possess divine knowledge, it entirely excludes the exercise of faith. "Faith," says an Apostle, "is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen." Since faith is the substance of things hoped for, it supposes that those things are not already in our possession. In this manner the Apostle reasoned upon this subject. * Aton. pp. 190, 191. Heb. xi. 1. ↑ Rom. xiv. 23. Heb. xi. 6. "For," says he, "we are saved by hope; but hope that is seen, is not hope; for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it."* Again, as faith is the evidence of things not seen, it would be absurd to tell of men's exercising faith in an object already in their possession. Thus would your views exclude the means of the gospel, and introduce men into heaven in a way of which the scriptures are totally ignorant. But probably you are ready to say that men are saved by the resurrection, and consequently by Christ. Be it so. This, however, is giving up both the other positions on which I have been remarking. For if men are saved by the resurrection, they are not saved by death's stoping their career of wickedness; not by being instructed; and I may add, not by faith and repentance. That this is a position which you sometimes take, may be seen by the following quotations. "The Apostle did not believe in a state of sin and misery after the resurrection, but a glorious state of life and immortality." "It seems more proper to say that the resurrection into immortal life effected the preparation for eternal felicity.”‡ In fact, it is a common saying with you that there can be Do suffering after the resurrection. But let us attend closely to this subject for a moment. I wish to inquire when this resurrection takes place. The principal scripture you cite in proof of a resurrection, is first Corinthians, fifteenth chapter. The resurrection, according to this passage, is to take place or commence at Christ's coming. Now I will submit it to you to say when this coming of Christ did, or will take place. If you say it alludes to his first coming, or to his coming at the destruction of Jerusalem, then it will follow that all men in all ages were raised to immortality at that period, + Lect. p. 94. Rom. viii. 24, 25. though it were hundreds of years before those now living, had a being! But with all the absurdity attendant upon this view of the subject, future punishment is by no means avoided. If men were not raised to immortality until Christ's coming, then the old world, and Sodom, Korah and his company, Pharaoh and his host, and multitudes of others may have remained in suffering for a long series of years, between death and the resurrection. Again, if the resurrection is future, thousands may now be unhappy, being as yet destitute of salvation. Should you, to avoid this difficulty, contend that they may be made happy before the resurrection, I reply, then they are not saved by the resurrection, and the position now before us falls to the ground. The position that men are saved by the resurrection, must apply to all men, or else it is nothing to your purpose; for if all are not saved by it, then some may remain in misery after the resurrection, and so your notion of no future punishment must be given up. To answer your purpose, then, it must apply to all men. And this resurrection by which all are to be saved, must be either past or future. If it be past, then it involves the absurdity that many thousands of human beings were raised to a state of immortality, hundreds of years before they had any existence! And if it be future, then many may be in misery at the present moment, though they have been dead for thousands of years. So in either case, it is far from yielding you that assistance you want. I know not how you can extricate yourself from these absurdities, unless you unite with the visionary Swedenborg, and maintain that each man is raised at the moment of death. This I think is the only course you can adopt. For the views you have advanced, relative to the soul of man, forbid your saying with the materialist, that there is no existence between death and the resurrection. I do not remember having seen any instance |