The Condition of Man after Death. 199 there was a soul within this body: Believe ye, therefore, that though ye shall see no soul of mine, yet it shall still have a being. Shortly, all but a hateful Epicurus have agreed to this truth: and if some have fancied a transmigration of souls into other bodies; others a passage to the stars which formerly governed them; others to I know not what Elysian fields; all have pitched upon a separate condition. In the work entitled Mortal Life, and the State of the Soul after Death, we read: "If man, or rather the soul of man, did not live in a former state, then the Almighty creates a new soul for every person who is born. There is, in short, a constant creation of souls. Our material frames may continue their kind,-similar bodies to themselves by the delegated power of God; but they cannot be supposed to create souls. We commonly believe that God creates souls at the time these bodies are produced which they are to inform.' Mr. Samuel Blair also records his opinion that "the soul is a real creation as well as the body, although a different substance; * and Lord Brougham remarks that while the material world affords no example of creation, of mind this cannot be said; it is called into existence perpetually before our eyes." Dr. Cromwell considers all these notions greatly below right, and even reverent, ideas of the operations of the Deity. Dr. Millingen, on the other hand, considers that "we are born with a soul;" but then arises the question, at what period the immortal essence joins the embryonic existence. Another theory is that "whenever a body is completely organised, there is a general law in nature, by which, without any particular interposition of the Deity, a soul immediately attaches itself to it; " but this, Dr. Priestley adds, 66 supposes the pre-existence of all human souls; which, indeed, was the original doctrine of the soul, and what he thinks to be necessary to make the system complete and consistent." Dr. Cromwell then refers to the opinion of modern physiologists, that soul and body, unitedly, may, after all, be only a proper reproduction; for that, allowing the soul to be essentially distinct from, it may be an essence comprehended by, one of those minute cells, in which every organised fabric, animal or vegetable, has been discovered to originate. (See Morell's Elements of Psychology, Part I.) Examples are not less rife, (says Dr. Cromwell,) of the immaterialistic faith that the human soul comes immediately from God, and is of the very nature-indeed, so to speak, a very fraction-of God. It is beyond question that this doctrine prevailed with all such of the ancients as held that of the immateriality of the soul. The Indian or Egyptian philosopher never doubted it: it reigned from Plato, if not from Pythagoras, to Seneca, and Epictetus among the Greeks and Romans; and it was a marked * Mind and Matter, p. 133. ́*· + Disc. Nat. Theology, p. 110. Priestley in Correspondence with Price, p. 372. feature of the new Platonism of Alexandria. Plotinus, dying, exclaimed "I am struggling to liberate the divinity within me." The pious James Montgomery sings: The sun is but a spark of fire, A transient meteor in the sky; "We are all emanations from the Infinite Essence," says Morell; and Mr. Blair states that he once heard an eloquent preacher say in the pulpit, "the soul is a part of God himself, and is deathless and indestructible; "thus nearly repeating Plutarch: "The soul is not God's mere work, but a part of himself: its creation was not by him, but from him, and out of him." Dr. Cromwell urges that the progress of physiology indicates that psychology will hereafter not alone be based upon but moulded by it; and foretells that in due time will follow the common admission that the capacities called those of the Mind, are, by a law of the human creature, "determined by the size, form, and constitution of the Brain, the form, size, and qualities of which are transmitted by hereditary descent." "TO THE HOLY SPIRIT." A remarkable instance of sacred poetry becoming the household words of the poor is presented in the following, from Herrick's "Noble Numbers," which, some fifty years since, was repeated by a poor woman in the ninety-ninth year of her age, named Dorothy King. This beautiful Litany and four others, she had learned from her mother, who was apprenticed to Herrick's successor in the vicarage of Dean Prior, in Devonshire. She called them her prayers, which, she said, she was in the habit of putting up in bed, whenever she could not sleep. She had no idea that these poems had ever been printed, and could not have read them if she had seen them. HIS LITANY, In the hour of my distress, Sweet Spirit, comfort me! When I lie within my bed, Sweet Spirit, comfort me! Life after Death.-Reunion of Soul and Body. 201 When the passing-bell doth toll, When the priest his last hath pray'd, 'Cause my speech is now decay'd, Sweet Spirit, comfort me! When the tempter me pursu'th Sweet Spirit, comfort me! When the judgment is reveal'd, Sweet Spirit, comfort me! LIFE AFTER DEATH.-REUNION OF THE SOUL AND BODY. The unequal distribution of good and evil in this world proves that there must be another state, where the good will be rewarded and the wicked punished: since, it is not possible that a Being of perfect justice and holiness, of infinite wisdom and power, should have so ordered things that obeying him and our own conscience should ever make us miserable, and disobeying them prove beneficial to us on the whole. Strongly as this argument proves the doctrine of a life after death, it is considerably strengthened by the universal agreement of mankind, with but few exceptions. Not only Jews, but all the nations of the world, learned or unlearned, ancient or modern, appear to have been persuaded that the souls of men continue after death. The full reward of good persons deceased is not yet bestowed upon them, nor the full punishment of the wicked inflicted; since these things are to follow the General Resurrection. The state of those that die in the Lord is not a state of insensibility; since our Saviour describes the soul of Lazarus as "carried by angels into Abraham's bosom," and there "comforted;" and he promised the penitent robber upon the cross, that he should be "that day with him in paradise :" hence, this cannot be a state of insensibility, but happiness. That the bodies of all men shall be raised up again, and reunited to their souls is reasonable: for God is infinite both in power and knowledge; and it is, unquestionably, as possible to bring together and enliven the scattered parts of our body again, as it was to make them out of nothing, and give them life at first. This doctrine is probably implied in that general promise made to our first parents that "the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head," destroy his power, and consequently take away the curse under which he had brought mankind. For as part of that curse consists in the death of the body, it cannot be completely taken away but by the resurrection of the body. (“That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die.") Abraham had so strong a belief in this, that he was willing, on the Divine command, to sacrifice his son; reasoning, as the Epistle to the Hebrews teaches us, "that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead." Job says: "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin this body be destroyed, yet in my flesh shall I see God." Elijah being taken up alive into heaven, must also have given an expectation that the body, as well as the soul, was to partake of future happiness. It is a question about which commentators are much divided, whether Job expresses in these words his firm belief of a resurrection in the body to happiness after death; or only of God's interposition in his favour before he died, to vindicate his character from the unjust imputations of his friends. The truth was not yet revealed. Mind could not then grasp the doctrine of the Resurrection of the flesh, still less (of course) could language consciously express it; and yet it may have been a thing spiritually discovered by the faithful, from the first hour that the promise of a Redeemer was given. Dim, indistinct, impalpable, in short, a mystery, so far as intellectual apprehension was concerned, it may nevertheless have wrought upon the spirit with an influence scarcely less mighty than it does now, when it is read in the full light of the risen Jesus. That which, in fact, "was from the beginning of the Word of Life," we upon whom the ends of the world are come have heard, yea, have, in a manner, 66 seen with our eyes, and have looked upon, and our hands have handled." For the life which Job discerned, if at all, so dimly, distantly, and indistinctly-the life of the body after the soul has fled from it, and it has mingled with the dust-that life has been manifested to us in Christ, who is the life and we have seen it, though not with our own eyes, with the eyes of Christian forefathers with whom, through the Spirit, we are one in the Communion of Saints.-Job, a Course of Lectures, by J. E. Kempe, Rector of St. James's. The Intermediate State. THE Intermediate State is the condition of the righteous immediately after their departure from this life, and between that event and the General Resurrection. That this will be a state of repose from the sufferings that mortality is heir to, may be thought sufficiently plain from the declaration of St. John in the Revelation, that to those who "die in the Lord," their death will be the introduction to a state of undisturbed tranquillity: they will "rest from their labours." That it will be their immediate introduction to a state of enjoyment also, may, perhaps, be inferred from the clause, "and their works do follow them;" that is, the rewards consequent on their former works. But there is stronger foundation for the opinion that the righteous will enter upon a state of enjoyment immediately after their dissolution. From the parable of the rich man and Lazarus -the former in torments, and the latter in Abraham's bosom,-it is inferred that death is at once followed by a condition of conscious comfort or torment; for the parable supposes the continuance upon earth of the "five brethren" of the rich man, in a state of prolonged trial and responsibility, at the same time that it represents Lazarus as "comforted," and the rich man as "tormented." It is, therefore, argues Bishop Mant, to be understood as describing, on the part of those who were dead, the condition which they were allotted before the Day of Judgment. The Bishop maintains, also, that the language of our blessed Redeemer to the dying malefactor on the cross, recognises the same notion. But the completest exposition of the doctrine of Holy Writ on this subject is considered by Dr. Mant to be found in the following collect in the "Order for the Burial of the Dead"--one of the most impressive portions of that admirable service of our scriptural Church : Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord, and with whom the souls of the faithful, after they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity; we give Thee hearty thanks, for that it hath pleased Thee to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world; beseeching Thee that it may please Thee of thy gracious goodness, shortly to accomplish |