Now as these are under a law
of vanity and incessant change,--[Greek: ta mae onta, all' aei
ginomena],--so must all be, to the production and continuance of which
they are indispensable. On this hangs the doctrine of the resurrection
of the body, as an essential part of the doctrine of immortality;--on
this the Scriptural (and only true and philosophical) sense of the soul,
'psyche' or life, as resulting from the continual assurgency of the
spirit through the body;--and on this the begetting of a new life, a
regenerate soul, by the descent of the divine Spirit on the spirit of
man. When the spirit by sanctification is fitted for an incorruptible
body, then shall it be raised into a world of incorruption, and a
celestial body shall burgeon forth thereto, the germ of which had been
implanted by the redeeming and creative Word in this world. Truly hath
it been said of the elect:--They fall asleep in earth, but awake in
heaven. So St. Paul expressly teaches: and as the passage (1. 'Cor'. xv.
35--54,) was written for the express purpose of rectifying the notions
of the converts concerning the Resurrection, all other passages in the
New Testament must be interpreted in harmony with it. But John,
likewise,--describing the same great event, as subsequent to, and
contra-distinguished from, the partial or millennary Resurrection--which
(whether we are to understand the Apostle symbolically or literally) is
to take place in the present world,--beholds 'a new earth' and 'a new
heaven' as antecedent to, or coincident with, the appearance of the New
Jerusalem,--that is, the state of glory, and the resurrection to life
everlasting.
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