what it took away. The worms which have fattened upon the entrails of this man, have been eaten by swallows, these swallows have been devoured by other birds, and these again by hawks, these hawks again by vultures; each of these must restore precisely what belonged to the dead man, otherwise he cannot be the same person.' ""* I am willing that the reader should determine whether the objection by Voltaire and that propounded by Professor Bush, are not substantially the same. And if they are, then, what are we to think of the Professor's" Knowledge of Revelation Progressive," as applied by him to sustain this very objection?

Another point which should not be passed over here, is the fact that Professor Bush, perpetually, through his whole book places the most implicit reliance upon the conclusions of this argument-conclusions, however, which he skilfully induces the reader to draw. In almost innumerable places, where he finds the obvious sense of a passage of Scripture to conflict with his theory, he refers to this argument with some such remark as the following: "No two truths in the universe can conflict with each other." Or thus, "If our previous train of reasoning be sound, the drift of which is to evince that the future resurrection of the same body is intrinsically inconceivable and incredible," &c., or, "We have undoubtedly made our previous inductions a criterion by which the absolute truth of the scriptural dicta on the subject are to be judged," &c. "If our rational results are sound and impregnable," &c., &c. pp. 97, 273, &c., &c. These things are surely more than sufficient to justify us in stating this argument so fully as we have done, and also in replying to it at the length which we propose.†

Another point which should be here referred to, is that many of the most acute, and learned, and discriminating minds the world has ever seen, and who have bestowed upon the subject as much attention, to say the least, as Professor Bush has ever done, have, with a perfect knowledge of every thing which he has alleged against it, still adhered to the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. Take bishop Butler, for an example. In his Analogy, (one of the most splendid monuments of human genius,) published more than

*See "Letters of Certain Jews to Monsieur Voltaire," p. 484.

For other references to this argument as perfectly conclusive, see pp. 71, 81, 82, 191, 235, 236, 385, 386, 390, &c., &c. His book actually teems with such references.

a century ago, he has repeatedly affirmed the then well known fact, of the never-ceasing attrition and replacement of the particles which compose the human structure. A fact which composes the sole basis of Professor Bush's argument from reason-and a fact, the knowledge of which, he pretends to ascribe to the recent results of scientific investigation. And besides, he himself incidentally admits that the same objection was substantially known, and replied to by Augustin fifteen hundred years ago. See Anastasis, p. 41, and De Civitate Dei, lib. 22, cap. 13 and 20. And yet these men, and the great body of the church of God, learned as well as unlearned, who have been aware of all that Professor Bush has advanced, have ever held to the doctrine which he impugns. Dr. Bentley would have told Professor Bush, (if he had collected and urged these old stale cavils and objections in the Doctor's time,) as he told a certain noted character of his own day, that "it filled him with disdain to see such common stuff brought in with an air of importance." Phileleuth. Lipsiensis, Part I. p. 92–114.

SECTION III.

The condition of Professor Bush's Argument from Reason. But for the sake of doing full justice to the subject, we shall, in replying to this objection, proceed as though the assumption of Professor Bush respecting the nature and recent origin of his argument were unquestionable. He may have all the advantage which the argument of his adoption can yield him.

Now the whole argument resolves itself simply into this: a deduction of reason arrays itself against a declaration of the Bible. But "no two truths in the universe can really conflict with each other;" and therefore revelation must be so explained as to agree with the "irrefragable deduction" of reason. See Anastasis, pp. 71, and 81, 82, &c.

But this statement is not perfectly clear. For it assumes that we may rest with implicit confidence upon the deductions of science and reason as true, even where they plainly conflict with the testimony of God. And why, I would ask, should we not as readily suspect the truth of our scientific deductions, as the testimony of revelation in respect to any given subject? That there is the best of reasons for this shall be shown in another section.

But again. This statement of Professor Bush, though so often repeated, is at best not clear. If he means by it, that when God declares positively that a thing is thus or so, and our reason infers the contrary, that we should take the verdict of reason instead of the testimony of God, I protest wholly against it. But if he means that in a case where the import of Scripture is not clear and positive; reason and science may properly lend a hand to explain and illustrate the passage, surely, there is nothing in this that need be presented so continually as it is by Professor Bush, and in such a controversial attitude. It is what is universally admitted by the Christian church.

But though Professor Bush seems to have substantially adopted the views of Leibnitz and Wolf "on the agreement of Faith and Reason,"* yet in other parts of his book he appears to have conceded on this subject every thing that we could require. Take, for example, the following from pp. 84, 85, "If the teachings of that divine volume array themselves so unequivocally and inexorably against the conclusions to which we are brought by the argument from reason, that we can by no process of conciliation harmonize the two, undoubtedly we are required to abide by the scriptural decision, whatever violence it may seem to do to our rational deductions." See also pp. 26, 27. Now if this be so, then the whole matter resolves itself into a question of exegesis: viz. Has the Bible asserted the doctrine of the resurrection of the body clearly and unequivocally? And this is the question with which we think Professor Bush should have commenced his discussion. And if he had found the doctrine to be ambiguously asserted, or expressed, then it would have been proper and timely to call reason and science to his assistance.

SECTION IV.

How much of Professor Bush's Theory would be established by his Argument from Reason, admitting both its premises and conclusion to be correct.

Professor Bush has attempted to make this argument the basis of his theory: and before we proceed further with our

"Logical necessity," said they, "cannot be altered by God himself, and therefore it cannot contradict revelation." See Tholuck's Historical Sketch of German Rationalism. And compare Anastasis, pp. 45, 47, 57, &e.

discussion of it, it may be well to inquire how much of his theory it will support, admitting both its premises and conclusion to be sound. How much would the received doctrine of the resurrection, and judgment, &c. &c., require to be modified supposing this argument to be truly unanswerable and conclusive?

In answer to this I remark, that this argument would establish but the smallest and most unimportant fraction of his theory. IT WOULD ONLY PROVE THAT THE SAME BODY

THAT DIED WOULD NOT ARISE IN THE RESURRECTION.

But it would not prove, 1. That a spiritual body is, at death, eliminated from the corporeal; or 2. That there is not to be a day of future resurrection; or 3. That there is not to be a future day of judgment; or 4. That Christ's material body did not arise and ascend to heaven; or 5. That the resurrection is effected by natural laws; or 6. That the righteous alone are partakers of the resurrection; or 7. That the spiritual germ or body is perfected in the spiritual world, as the animal body is in this.

His argument from reason therefore, is of but little service to the Professor after all. It does not establish but a single feature of his whole theory. He could have lost but little therefore, if he had left it in the undisturbed possession of Mohammedans, Socinians, and skeptics.

But we refer to these considerations only en passant; and shall now proceed to a full refutation of the argument on philosophical principles; or at least to show on such principles that it cannot be fully depended upon. And though Professor Bush has not and cannot prove that what is necessary to the true identity of the body that dies ever becomes incorporated with other human bodies, but has assumed it without proof, we shall not dwell upon the unwarrantableness of such an assumption, but proceed at once to show the inconclusiveness of the argument even as he has stated it.

SECTION V.

Professor Bush's Argument from Reason cannot be safely relied on.

Reason itself, as Swift correctly remarks,* "is true and just; but the reason of every particular man is weak and

* See his Sermon on the Trinity, Works, Vol. II.

wavering, and is perpetually liable to be swayed or influenced by his interests, his prejudices or his vices." And it is in consequence of losing sight of this obvious distinction, that the so-called reason has assumed a Protean form, and utters oracles in one age, which the better information of the next sweeps away as the winds did the inscribed leaves of the Sybil. France could laud reason to the skies, and even worship her as in fancy embodied in the form of an insane strumpet: while other nations regarded her proceedings as utterly at war with reason. Bacon, and Boyle, and Newton, and Butler, could see nothing unreasonable in the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, though they were acquainted with every thing that Professor Bush has urged against it; but the Professor himself sees it to be wholly unreasonable, and that "it involves ideas at war with each other, and therefore cannot be intelligently received." Anastasis, Preface, p. x.

If Professor Bush had told us what reason is, in the sense in which he uses the term, and had laid down the canons by which we might be able to determine when she uttered her infallible decrees, we should not have so much wondered at the confidence which he professes to repose in her decisions. For as we have been accustomed to contemplate the subject, what is called reason, has certainly played many singular antics with the minds of her implicit worshippers. And I have long supposed that among reflecting men, it was an admitted fact that the greatest mistakes may be easily made in our conception of things and inferences therefrom; and that the judgment may be easily imposed upon. Lord Bacon, I thought, had long ago settled this matter, in his "Table of the Colours of Good and Evil," (Works, vol. II., p. 254, seq. London, 1838,) wherein he so clearly demonstrates that the intellectual faculty is at best but weak, and is in almost all our pursuits perpetually liable to be abused and led astray.

A wise heathen, when he remarked that the soul is infected by the phantasms which surround it,* shrewdly intimated that men often guess at truth rather than discover it: a sentiment which Du Pint has, (without formally referring to it,) thus strikingly expanded: "We speak and write mostly,

* Βάπτεται ἀπὸ τῶν φαντασιῶν ἡ ψυχή. Marc. Aurel. Antoninus Lib. iii.

† See his Bibl. Patr. Prefatione.