ennobled, and exalted; and in which they shall be brought forth to inhabit a region, where all that survives of human nature shall exist in a more exalted mode, shall exhibit a state of consummate perfection, "safe from disease and decline.”

SECTION IV.

Arguments to prove that the Resurrection of the body can no more take place immediately, than Seed-time and Harvest can be blended together.

It has been repeatedly asserted, in the course of this work, that death is a natural effect of moral evil; and I flatter myself that these assertions have been satisfactorily proved, in several of the preceding sections.

But, while the arguments which have been advanced to prove that moral evil must be destroyed, appear highly favourable to the resur rection of the body; they seem to open the door to an objection which may be stated thus. "If death be a natural effect of moral evil, if no natural effect can survive its cause, and moral evil be totally destroyed, the consequence must be an immediate resurrection of the body from the grave."

Specious as this objection may appear, it is one which I flatter myself will admit of a solution; it is one, indeed, which has been already anticipated, and in part already answered. For, though it has been asserted, that no natural effect can survive its cause; that moral evil is the cause of death;

and that moral evil must be done away; yet there are two lights in which the destruction of moral evil may be considered.

In the first place, it may be said to be destroyed in relation to individuals, the instant that death takes place upon them, and separates their souls from their bodies. For, as probation must be confined to the present state, and as those laws by which we distinguish good from evil, must be confined to that mode of being in which we are capable of obedience and transgression; a removal from this state of existence must effectually change our condition, and resolve all into retributive certainty either of punishment or reward. Whenever, therefore, this change in our condition shall take place, in an individual sense; moral evil may be said to be destroyed.

Nevertheless, in a more universal sense, moral evil may be said to continue, so long as the present state of things shall remain unchanged. And, consequently, though it may no longer operate upon those individuals, whose bodies are lodged in the arms of death; yet the influence of moral evil must run parallel with mortality, and occasion that death which mankind must undergo. In this view, moral evil cannot be universally destroyed, while one mortal remains alive; and therefore the resurrection of the body cannot immediately take place.

But, even admitting the destruction of moral evil to take place, as in the first case supposed; it will not from thence follow that the resurrection must be an immediate event. St. Paul has told us, in rela

tion to the process of vegetation, that the body which is sown, is not quickened (into future life) except it die; time therefore must evidently be necessary to the developement of the future plant, the future ear, and the future grain, which come forth in perfection when the future harvest shall commence. Since, therefore, progression becomes necessary to future completion, seed-time must necessarily precede those stages which are conducive to approaching perfection; and to suppose that harvest could blend with that condition which must necessarily be previous to it, is to make a supposition which is not only contradicted by fact, but which also involves a contradiction.

Neither will the case appear less improbable, or less absurd, if we make an application of these remarks to the resurrection of the bodies of the dead. Those portions of permanent matter in which I have presumed the identity of the body to consist, I have supposed also to be the germ of future life, which must necessarily, like the seed of some future grain, be in an embryo state, and consequently unprepared for its future habitation. Under these circumstances, the progress of time becomes necessary to call forth those latent powers which shall unfold themselves in our future bodies, so that they may be adapted to that condition of being which they must sustain for ever.

From the principles upon which I have proceeded it must be admitted, that this embryo state of our future bodies, may be in different stages of progression when deposited in the earth; and the spe.

cific quantity of time necessary to ripen those bod ies which shall be, for that state of perfection to which they tend, must be determined by those previous periods, in which their constituent parts were lodged in a seminal state. And how various or multiform soever these stages might have been, they are evidently such as will suit the whole suc cession of time, and place the bodies of all the hu man race on an even scale. On this ground we can rationally conceive, how the general resurrection may take place in one and the same instant; though the bodies which shall rise had been deposited in the grave through all the preceding ages of the world.

The introduction of moral evil into the world I have already admitted to be the case of death, and the primary cause of that dissolution which im. mediately succeeds. But as, when death takes place, and by separating soul and body, destroys the identity of man, moral evil must cease to act upon that individual; the latent powers must begin to operate, and move onward towards that perfection which the future body shall possess and enjoy through eternity.

But, as those parts of immoveable matter which constitute the identity of the body here, and shall be the germ of that which shall exist hereafter, must have been deposited in the grave in distant periods; so they must have been deposited in different stages of progression; and, consequently, must require different portions of duration in the grave, to ripen for the grand result of things. And,

as those bodies which were first deposited in the grave must require the longest time because they existed the shortest in a seminal state; so those which have been interred more recently, having been lodged a much longer period in their seminal state, will require a comparatively shorter season to bring them forth into a state of complete perfection. And, as that germ which shall constitute our future bodies must be in a state of immaturity, whensoever deposited in the grave; those ages become requisite to ripen it, which shall elapse from the time of its interment, until the sound of the trumpet shall awaken the dead. And, therefore, though moral evil be, the cause of death, and though it cease when soul and body are separated from each other, it will be impossible that the body should immedi, ately rise from the grave.

Nothing that is in embryo can be in a state of maturity. Maturity, therefore must be the work of progression; and progression in such cases, must be incompatible with instantaneous action. The germ in embryo cannot be matured, while it is in embryo, and while it is a germ; if it were so, it would no longer be a germ in embryo, but a germ in maturity, which in this view is a contradiction in terms. An embryo, it is true, may be perfect, as an embryo; but while it is an embryo, it must be distinct from that body which it shail hereafter constitute. And to suppose that which is an embryo of a future body, to be that future body in completion, is to suppose it to be what it is not, and what,