Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

not been abandoned. The times, indeed, have changed, and the circumstances of our periodical literature have passed through amazing vicissitudes-but the course of our labours is substantially the same. We have been, and we continue to be, a link of connection between the wise and the good among all denominations of professing Christians. From the necessities of the case, no less than from choice, we are evangelical Dissenters, yet we desire to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace; and are increasingly anxious to see all sincere Christians brought to regard the revealed mind of Christ, without addition or subtraction, as their only rule both of faith and practice. At the close of fifty-four years of anxious effort to promote the interests of truth and brotherly love, and to advance the cause of vital religion both at home and abroad, we put in our plea for a continued and increased measure of public support. We appeal to our pages, not invidiously, but still confidently, for the justice of the claim which we venture to urge. We remind all our friends of the extensive benefits which the Magazine continues to extend to thousands of the human race. We call on them to rally round it as one of the earliest and most useful of our religious periodicals. We urge upon pastors, deacons, and members of churches, the duty of promoting, by such opportunities as they possess, its growing prosperity. We refer, with unfeigned delight, to the fact, that, at

the present moment, there are one hundred and fifty widows of pious and devoted pastors receiving annual grants from its funds; and that nearly 14007. were thus spent during the past year upon these objects of intense interest and Christian sympathy.

Our earnest advice to the friends of the Magazine and of the Widow, is, not only to continue their personal support of the Magazine, but to endeavour each to procure another subscriber to the work. Is there ONE who reads the Magazine who could not accomplish this?-We think not. But what an increase of the fund applicable to widows would this produce! and what extensive good would arise from the more general perusal of the work! The widows of ministers so greatly multiply, from the increase of our ministry, that, unless our friends stand by us, and strengthen our hands, numbers of deserving widows will throw themselves upon the Trustees, without their being able to afford them relief. Let our proposal, then, be kindly entertained by every reader of the Magazine. If adopted, the sale will be doubled, and multitudes of widowed hearts will be made "to sing for joy." We wish to see no other periodical, conducted on Christian principles, injured by our sale; and we believe that no such alternative need be apprehended. There is room enough for all, and more than all the religious periodicals of the day. May they all be prospered and

blessed!

STATE OF THE DEPARTED BETWEEN DEATH AND THE

RESURRECTION.

BY DR. PAYNE.

THE great body of evangelical Chris-rassed by certain philosophical difficul

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

acted wisely and rightly. "Thus saith the Scripture," is the proper basis for faith. What God testifies should be received, because he testifies it. Philosophy may, in certain cases, step forward and explain how a revealed declaration may be true; but it is the Divine testimony that challenges our faith in it. On the other hand, apparent philosophical objections against what is affirmed to be a fact by the Bible, can, at most, only affect the quo modo of the fact. They merely leave us in the dark as to its explanation; but they ought not to be suffered to overthrow-having no proper force to overthrow-the fact itself. The philosophy is, in this case, to be suspected; for the Bible is true philosophy. That which contradicts the unequivocal testimony of the Bible is false philosophy. It is wrong in its principles, or wrong in its deductions; and, though we may not be able to detect the error, we should confidently expect the arrival of the time when the error will be detected, and when the doctrines of philosophy will be brought into entire harmony with inspired testimony-the infallible standard of truth.

It is, however, to be regretted, when what appear to be correct philosophical principles are seemingly at variance with the explicit testimony of the Bible; for, though an occurrence of this kind ought only to shake our confidence in the conflicting philosophical principle, it is in danger of disturbing our faith in the Divine testimony, even when there can be no doubt about the meaning of the testimony.

To attempt, then, to show, in any case, the harmony between philosophy and the Bible, must be considered a work of considerable importance, inasmuch as, if we succeed, though we cannot add anything to the claims of Divine testimony upon our faith, (the simple reason for believing anything that God testifies, being that "HE testifies it,")-yet we may remove stumbling-blocks out of the way of faith.

struck me, that some of the generallyaccepted doctrines of mental science may be advantageously employed for this purpose. Against the theological doctrine of the conscious and happy existence of the soul, during the interval between death and the resurrection, the conceived dependence of the mind or soul upon the body has been supposed to present a difficulty. How can the soul think, or feel, without the body? Although the dissolution of the material frame should not, say the objectors, involve the destruction of the soul, must it not, of necessity, put an end to all its actings and operations? so that, what has been called the sleep of the soul between death and the resurrection would seem to be the necessary doctrine of philosophy.

Now, in the case of those who hold certain views of the nature and operations of the mind, this doctrine of the sleep of the soul-though its continued existence may be admitted-seems to be the nearest approach which their philosophy will enable them to make to the scriptural doctrine upon the subject. very few remarks will show this very distinctly.

A

There is, then-as all writers on mental science allow-a large class of feelings, of which the mind becomes subject by virtue of the action of something external upon the organs of sense,-as of the action of light upon the eye, and of that of air upon the ear. They constitute our sensations-as we call them-of vision, hearing, smell, &c. None of these can exist without the peculiar action referred

to
upon the organ. We cannot experience
a smell, or a taste, unless the air come
into contact with the nerves of hearing,
and the sapid body with those of tasting.
We may recollect a sensation; we may
form a lively conception of a sensation:
but we cannot have one, nothing can give
us one, without the requisite action upon
the bodily organ. When the hand is
cold we cannot make it warm by thinking
of the sensation we had when we last

It has, of late, somewhat powerfully held it to the fire. We must actually

hold it to the fire, and then we renew the of the resurrection; the reply is obvious, sensation. that this is a mere hypothesis, unsupported either by science or revelation; and further, that, as this temporary. clothing cannot be the proper body of the individual who is invested with itfor that lies sleeping in the grave,—it is hard to see how, in connection with this opinion, we can maintain the personal identity of the individual.

This class of affections has been called by the late Dr. Brown, "external affections," the phraseology being, of course, intended to intimate, not that the affections have not their proper seat in the mind, but that their proximate cause is external to the mind, that it is an affection of an organ of sense. It would seem, then, to be a necessary consequence of these statements, that no feelings of this class can exist without a body, and without the body, because the proximate cause the affection of the organ-cannot, of course, exist when the body is no more. Without eyes, and ears, and noses, &c., how can we have sights, and sounds, and smells, &c.? Their existence would seem to be impossible.

Now, if all the thoughts and feelings of which the mind is susceptible, were as necessarily dependent upon the body for their existence as those of the class of which we have just spoken, it would seem to follow, that we must relinquish the hope of the conscious existence of the soul between death and the resurrection; or that, if we hold fast the theological doctrine, we must do it with the conviction, that it is in painful and puzzling opposition to the doctrine of philosophy. I have always felt that this single circumstance should cause the earnest believer in Divine revelation to stand in doubt of phrenology. That doctrinescience I will not call it-virtually represents all our affections as external affections as depending upon a certain state of the body. The mind, indeed, might, in harmony with this system, continue to exist, and all its capacities might remain unimpaired, but any development of them would be impossible. Though capable of thought and feeling, the mind could have no actual thought and feeling without the body.

Should it be said, that, after death, the soul may not remain altogether destitute of a material habitation,—that it may be invested with a temporary body, destined to give place to the more spiritual body

From this phrenological difficulty, and, indeed, from all perplexity upon the subject, the distinction brought into prominent view by Dr. Brown, between the external and the internal affections, is adapted to relieve us. Many, it is quite possible, may disapprove of the nomenclature of this writer, against which, it must be confessed, there exist very obvious, if not insuperable, objections. I do not think it worth while, at present at least, to seek to defend it; but, even those who may disapprove the nomenclature must admit that the distinction it seeks to embody in words is a correct one. To illustrate this, it may be observed, that the appetite of hunger presents, after our mental analysis, two elements-a painful feeling, and a desire of relief from that feeling. Both the pain and the desire are mental states; they are in the mind; they can have their domicile nowhere else. But the proximate cause of the former feelingthe pain, is out of the mind; the proximate cause of the latter feeling—the desire of relief, is in the mind. In the first case, it is, probably, the action of the gastric juice upon the coats of the stomach; that is, an action of matter upon matter. In the second case-the case of the desire-it is the pain of hunger produced in the mind by the action of the gastric juice upon the stomach. Thus, the second element of hunger has for its immediate cause the first element, or the pain-that is a state of mind; and this first element has for its immediate cause the action upon the stomach-that is a state of the body.

I have referred to this case as constituting one example among many of the difference

which exists between our external and internal affections; or, if any dislike that phraseology, between our sensations and our other affections. I am not sure that I have selected the most fortunate illustration. The reader may take the following as an additional one. A conception, or an act of memory, may awaken an emotion. The thought of guilt may kindle remorse. It is an internal affection, and requires to have nothing out of the mind as its proximate cause; the thought will originate it. But no act of memory or conception can give us a taste, or a smell, or a sound. They are external affections. The body, and the bodily organs, and, I may add, such organs as we have at present, are necessary to the existence of the latter class of feelings. On the contrary, no organ, and, indeed, no body, is essential to the existence of the former. On the one hand, we cannot even conceive of seeing without eyes, or of hearing without ears, or of tasting without a palate; so, on the other, we can as little conceive of remorse or self-approbation being by means of these organs, or, indeed, by means of any other.

purpose. I am neither obliged, nor disposed, now at least, to show that philosophy can furnish positive proof of the immortality of the soul, and that it will be uninjured by death. Let the burden of doing this be thrown upon Divine revelation. I am not even obliged to prove that philosophy can show the probability that the soul will not be injured by death. This has, indeed, been done, ex concessit, to the infidel, and the doubtful Christian. All I have to do, is to prove, not the certainty, not the probability, but the possibility that the soul will be uninjured by death. The proof of this is sufficient for the point I now wish to establish, viz., that mental science does not, indeed, prove the theological doctrine of the conscious and happy existence of the soul during the interval between death and the resurrection, but shows us how that doctrine may be true— the full amount of assistance that philosophy can render to the support of any doctrine that is supposed to rest on direct Divine testimony.

The mind is always found in some state of thought or feeling, it is never entirely quiescent. And, as every one When death takes place there is no knows, there is a constant train of reason to suppose-as Butler has proved thought going on in the mind, one beyond all doubt that it affects anything thought originating another thought, and but the body. It breaks up, indeed, as that, again, a third; so that, if the entire we well know, the matchless organization multitude of thoughts which pass through of the material frame, and even destroys any mind in the course of a day were in the organs, but in doing this it exhausts distinct view before us, there would be its powers. To affirm that it touches the found a link of connection binding each immaterial part, is to affirm what is not separate thought to the one before and merely unsustained by the evidence, but the one after it. How the train may be directly contradicted by it. Up to the varied, and whether the mind, by a kind very moment of death, the mind, in of creative power, can throw in others many cases, obviously retains all its ac- which the laws of suggestion would not tive powers. We should have a right, have originated, it is not necessary for me then, to assume that it retains them to say. All that is incumbent upon me through death, and after death. I am to prove and which has been already content, for the present, to say, that, for proved is this, that one thought or aught we know to the contrary, it may state of mind can originate another retain them. I admit, indeed, that phi-thought or state of mind, without the losophy cannot absolutely assure us that it will not lose them in the moment of death, but neither can it assure us that it will, and that is enough for my present

aid of any other cause whatever, as the action of anything external upon the body.

Now, as the mind or soul is always in some state of thought or feeling, and as

[ocr errors]

we have no proof whatever—but presumption of the contrary-that death touches the immaterial part, it follows that the state of thought in which the mind exists when death assails the body will continue to exist modified, of course, by the altered circumstances in which the mind is placed-when death has done its work upon the body. There will be no stoppage of the machinery of the mind, no closing of its actings, no break in the chain of association. The thought which the mind carries into the separate state may, in accordance with what takes place in this world, originate other thoughts. It will form the link which binds the mind to time and connects it with eternitythe first in an endless train of thoughts and feelings, related to one another as antecedents and consequents, and requiring nothing whatever extraneous to the mind for their existence.

The whole of the preceding statements assume, that, of all that class of feelings which we term external affections, or sensations, the loss of the body will deprive us. This is my settled opinion. It is equally in harmony with mental science and with Divine revelation. The dissolution of the body is never represented as a gain to the Christian, but as a loss, a great and severe loss. No one who understands anything at all about the matter, desires to be simply unclothed, but clothed upon. The resurrection of the body is uniformly represented by the writers of the New Testament as constituting one of the most fondly-cherished hopes of the people of God. It must, indeed, be so; for it will leave them nothing to desire-nothing to enjoy. This accords well with the supposition that sensations cannot exist after the body crumbles into the dust. Yet why should it be thought that the memory of them perishes? This is not the case in this world when an organ of sense is entirely lost, when the ears are closed, and the eyes sealed up. Yet the loss of these two organs must be to the sensations of sight and of hearing, what the loss of all

the organs must prove to sensations in general. The memory of sensations may live in the separate state-though the sensations themselves cannot exist-as the memory of all that he has seen may live in the mind of the man whose eyes have been extirpated; though, vision being for ever lost to him, he is forced to exclaim with Samson, "Total eclipse; no sun, no moon; all dark amidst the blaze of noon." And, since the memory of sensations may exist, all that endless train of thoughts and feelings, which by the very constitution of the mind that memory is fitted to originate, may pass through the mind in its incorporeal state, and perhaps with incomparably greater ease and rapidity than when encumbered with this body of flesh and blood.

I have said nothing of the creative power of the mind. The object I have had in view in this paper has led me to a different course of inquiry and remark; yet it would be wrong to abstain altogether from observing, that, though the mind in its present position acquires ideas by observations directed to itself, and to the world without, it has the power of forming new ideas. The operations of this power seem to depend upon the circumstances in which the mind is placed. What are the extent and actings of this power, and what the new ideas which are the result of its operation, can be ascertained- let the transcendentalists say what they will to the contrary-by induction alone. In other and untried circumstances, the powers of the mindwith which we are but partially acquainted-may be developed in a new, and to us, now, inconceivable manner. The mind, in its changed condition, in the separate state, may, for aught we know to the contrary, develop altogether new powers and new operations of old powers. All conjecture must be at fault here. We must wait for the teaching of experience. Induction, in the incorporeal state of the mind, will be as necessary to the full knowledge of its powers and operations, as induction is absolutely essential now. G. PAYNE.

« VorigeDoorgaan »