rogatories. And we think that on this subject we are "at liberty to insist on the most punctilious exactness of definition.' But how does reason arrive at the conclusion that such is the resurrection body? Does Professor Bush mean pure reason? And pray what does reason teach of any resurrection-state whatever? Has she uttered an unquestionable and unequivocal dictum that man will live again? If so, where shall we go to learn it? To the French philosophers of the last century, who abolished Christianity, burnt the Bible by the hands of the executioner, and placed at the entrance of their grave yards the inscription that " Death is an eternal sleep?" Or shall we go to Priestley and others who taught that the existence of the soul is suspended between death and the resurrection? Reason, they say, led them to this conclusion. Or shall we go to the fond expectation of Cicero, who, after repeating the reasoning of Plato and Socrates, says, "But if I err, in believing the souls of men to be immortal, I am willing to err; nor while I live would I wish this delightful error removed. And if I shall feel nothing when dead (as is thought by some minute philosophers,) I am not afraid that dead philosophers shall laugh at me for the error." This certainly is very beautiful: but even in the very expression itself, it is perfectly clear that Cicero did not regard the sentiment as an "irrefragable deduction of reason." He views it in the light only of a pleasing probability. Where, then, shall we go to find the dictum of reason that man will live again? Professor Bush has neither told, nor can he tell.t How then can : * Quòd si in hoc erro, quòd animos hominum immortales esse credam libenter erro: nec mihi hunc errorem, quo delector, dum vivo, extorqueri volo. Sin mortuus (ut quidam minuti Philosophi censent) nihil sentiam: non vereor ne hunc errorem meum mortui Philosophi irrideant. Cato major sub fine. + Mr. Locke, who is Professor Bush's oracle, asserts that natural reason cannot demonstrate the doctrine of the soul's immortality. The schoolmen also, have investigated this whole subject with wonderful acuteness. Aquinas attempted to demonstrate the doctrine from reason; but Duns Scotus, (endowed with one of the most profound and subtle intellects which ever fell to the lot of humanity,) examined all his arguments, and shows that they utterly fail to prove the point, and can only render it credible, rem non esse demonstratam sed creditam. He himself propounds twenty-one probable reasons for the immortality of the soul, and asserts that reason can prove it to be only probable. The celebrated Cajetan at first indignantly rejected what he announces, be "the true body of the resurrection, as inferred by reason?" Surely there is a singular medley here. Yet perhaps Professor Bush means no more than that as the Bible has revealed the fact of a resurrection, he has taken that point for granted in the argument. But he has admitted virtually (as we shall show hereafter,) that he has resolved the doctrine of the resurrection into that of immortality, which Homer, Plato, Cicero, &c. entertained, (and which Professor Bush supposes is taught by reason;) and the Bible announcement of a resurrection, therefore, is with him, nothing more than an announcement of the same doctrine of immortality. Admitting then that he has, on the authority of scripture and reason, taken this first great principle for granted, we come next to inquire how Professor Bush has arrived at his conclusions respecting this elimination of which he speaks so much? How has he learned the modus eliminandi of which he speaks so largely? How does reason teach him any thing of the nature of this tertium quid? or of the germ which elaborates for itself a spiritual corporeity from the spiritual elements which surround it? How does the "prosecution exclusively of the rational argument” lead to any such inferences? And yet he asserts "that the argument from reason leads by fair and unforced inference to the conclusion, that the true doctrine of the resurrection is the doctrine of the developement of a spiritual body at death from the bodies which we now inhabit." See p. 84. And as it is on these assumptions that Professor Bush has attempted to unsettle the minds of men on the subject of the received doctrine of the resurrection, and arraigns that doctrine itself as irreconcilably inconsistent and absurd, it would be pardonable were we to remark with severity upon such a grave procedure, based upon such shallow and utterly fanciful hypotheses. The "conclusions" of his argument are mere baseless assumptions: and reason has never uttered what he has so pompously announced as the dicta of reason. Man is immortal, says Professor Bush; and therefore he this opinion, but after a thorough examination embraced it, and asserted that "he believed, indeed, that the soul is immortal, but did not know that it is so." Credo quidem animam rationalem incorruptibilem esse, at nescio tamen. But Professor Bush appears to have no difficulty whatever in conducting reason to any conclusion which his theory may stand in need of. does not all die when the body dies. And if so, his spiritual or psychical nature must survive the death of the body. Hence at death, there is a separation of the tertium quid, and of the spirit from the gross corporeal structure. And THERE FORE the developement of this spiritual body at death, is the true resurrection. Here is the argument and the “inference," and this is the true body of the resurrection inferred by reason! Never was there a more perfect non sequitur— or a greater hiatus between premises and conclusion. Reason knows nothing of this tertium quid; and knows not but that the pure spirit is separated from the body at death; it knows nothing as to the nature of spiritual existence; and it knows nothing as to the time, nature, mode, or any thing else belonging to the resurrection; much less does it know that this "developement AT death” is “ THE resurrection." And yet Professor Bush scruples not to aver that reason has conducted him to these inferences. And it is to these "inferences" that he proposes to "accommodate" the unambiguous declarations of God's word, in order that they may utter a sentiment consonant herewith. It is on the strength of such notions of mere fancy that the doctrine of a judgment to come, must be virtually explained away, and Christ's resurrection in the flesh utterly discarded! Other subjects introduced into this chapter, will be attended to in their proper order. But before we proceed to the remaining parts of Professor Bush's book, (we have now arrived at the end of Part I.,) we shall proceed to consider the objections to the received doctrine of the resurrection, which he has suggested in the chapters which we have examined; and which we could not notice as they occurred without deviating too widely from the true issue involved in the discussion of the argument from reason. CHAPTER V. PROFESSOR BUSH'S "OBJECTIONS FROM REASON TO THE RECEIVED DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION CONSIDERED. His repeated denial (in the Preface, and throughout the first part of his book,) that the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is taught in the Bible, cannot of course be considered here. The proper place for remarking upon it will be when we discuss the scriptural argument. But we shall now proceed to a consideration of the objections which he professes to found upon reason itself. Objection I. The first objection is in the following language: "Should it be replied, in general terms, to our question, that the truth claiming credence is, that the body which we consign to the dust is again to be raised and reanimated at some future day; we rejoin at once, that this reply does not cover the ground of the difficulty. The simple assertion that the dead body is to be raised does not constitute an intelligible proposition, for the reason that it leaves it utterly uncertain what body is meant. A resur rection is indeed predicated of a body, but this is a very different thing from the resurrection of the body, and our inquiry cannot possibly be satisfied without a more minute specification. No fact in physiological science is better ascertained, than that the human body, in regard to its constituent particles, is in a state of constant flux." And then after stating thus his argument from reason, he continues his objection as follows: "The phrase, the body, does not accurately represent the object intended, if the idea conveyed by it be restricted to the body as existing at any one moment. The idea of existence in continuity is indispensable to it. The question then again recurs-what body is to be raised? A person who dies at the age of seventy has had ten different bodies," &c. &c. See the rest of this objection quoted in our statement of his Argument from Reason. In reply to this objection I remark that "the truth claiming credence" is that the body which dies shall be raised from the dead, and re-united to the spirit. And how does the foregoing objection militate against this truth? The objection is, that while a man lives the particles of his body are in a continual flux. But the point is not respecting the body of the living man but of the dead. The attrition and replacement of the particles, to which Professor Bush refers, cease at death, and therefore the reply of the Professor is entirely aside from the question. He will not deny that whatever change may take place in the body after death, its constituent particles remain the same. And then again, as we have remarked a page or two back, by this mode of reasoning Professor Bush has raised a spectre which he cannot lay without abandoning his position altogether, and admitting the objection to be unsound. If the gross material body thus changes, the refined material tertium quid must likewise change. And if the fact of such a change in the gross body, furnishes ground for the question, "which of these bodies shall be the resurrection body?" it furnishes ground also for the question, "which of these tertium quids shall be the tertium quid of the resurrection?" Nor will it do for Professor Bush to say that the gross body dies, while the tertium quid remains alive; and that therefore the question does not apply to it, with the same force as to the gross body which actually dies and becomes dissolved: For 1. We have seen that this tertium quid is material; (Professor Bush admits that it is not pure spirit, and it cannot of course be a mixture of each;) and if so, it is properly a part of the material body, refined or unrefined. Now how does Professor Bush know that all which is material in man, does not die at death? If the tertium quid is spirit, then there are two pure spirits in man, the one united to the other, (which the Professor would not believe;) but if it be material, then it is a part of our material or corporeal structure: and if so, why should it not die? Where is Professor Bush's proof that it does not die? The baseless assumption of such an idea in a discussion where so much depends upon that idea, is rather too grave a procedure to be allowed. We ask for the proof that any part of man except his spirit, (wholly disengaged from matter,) survives the death of the body. But 2. "Why should the preference be given to the last tertium quid in the series" of an old man of seventy or eighty, instead of the full and vigorous one which he possessed at the age of twenty-eight, or thirty-five, or forty-two? for at each of these periods it was entirely renewed according to Professor Bush. And certainly it is as easy for God to give him such an one, as to give him the feeble one of seventy or eighty years. And God who established the laws of nature, could just as easily have ordered that the one which the man had at the age of forty-five, should be "by natural laws eliminated," as the one which he has at eighty. Whatever other persons may think of the relevancy of these queries, Professor Bush will see their relevancy, and the necessity of replying to them, inasmuch as he has propounded similar ones respecting the resurrection of the body. Then 3. The fact of this seven year's renewal of the corporeal structure of man, (upon which the Professor has based not only this |