points mainly to a spiritual and not a corporeal resurrection." This passage, then, which "seems to be explicitly" uttering the doctrine of a bodily resurrection, is, after all, "to be considered as having simply re-echoed the announcement" of the earlier prophet, "without professing to give any other additional light respecting it than what concerned the divine agent by whom it was to be effected."

A little critical attention to "this passage," and the context, will show that our author was right in his judgment of it, when he penned the first sentence of his critique upon it, and admitted that "it is undoubtedly the strongest passage in the New Testament in favor of the common view of the resurrection." And moreover we think it will also show that it not only encounters, but utterly sweeps away, the "cumulative mass of evidence built upon rational and philosophical grounds," in favor of his "developed" psychical body at or before death. If our readers will take their Testament and turn to John v, and read verses 24, 25, they will have before them an announcement of a spiritual resurrection, that is, a resurrection of the soul. For, although @avárov in verse 24, and veкpoi in verse 25, are the terms used to signify death and the dead, yet they are also the terms which are employed to express the idea intended to be conveyed by the phrase "spiritual death." The original meaning is retained in this use of the words, but a moral application is given to them, so that they express the sinfulness, and its consequences, of man in his natural state. An example of the use of the former term may be found in 1 John iii, 14, where it is said, "We know that we have passed from death (0avárov) unto life, because we love the brethren." A corresponding use of the latter word may be seen in Eph. ii, 1: "And you hath he quickened, who were dead (vekρovç) in trespasses and sins." This use of these terms is very common in the New Testament.

But will the passage in question bear this construction? Can there be a figurative sense enforced upon it at all? Enforced it must be if it "yield this sense" in any manner whatever. We think we may say, unhesitatingly, that μvnuelov is never used in the New Testament in a sense corresponding with the figurative application of the words Oavároç and veкpoì. In Matt viii, 28, where the word occurs in the plural form, it is rendered "tombs." See also chap. xxvii, 60. But in John xx, 1, μvnμetov is rendered "sepulchre." And we have failed to find it used in the New Testament in any sense differing from the most natural and obvious import which is given to it in the texts here cited. Our readers will perceive that its proper etymological meaning is strongly retained in the use of the term in these places; namely, a memo

rial, monument, or tomb, which to a great extent was a remembrancer. How then is it possible that the predicted resurrection, in the text under consideration, can be a spiritual resurrection? This is not being saved or delivered from the кpíσiv, of verse 24, (which, by the by, reflects the legal sense in which Oavárov is to be understood,) but a resurrection of the entombed dead; of those "who are in the GRAVES." Could our Saviour have used more explicit language to assert the great fact of a future general resurrection? We see not how it could have been possible. And how Professor Bush could have given it the construction he has we cannot imagine, unless, indeed, he was driven to such extremes by the force of the evidence which he attempts to resist.

We must now conclude our remarks upon this ingenious, but, as we believe, specious book. We do not feel it necessary to pursue any further his exposition of "particular passages." For if the remaining ones afford no better proof of our author's theory than the one we have just examined, (and in our judgment they do not,) our readers, we think, will have very little, if any, apprehension for the safety of their strongly-cherished "hope of a resurrection from the dead." And especially will they feel confident of this, if they think, as we do, that the arguments of our author against the bodily resurrection are wholly insufficient to disprove this fact so fundamental to any important view of the resurrection of mankind.

Our author is not the first who has attempted to go beyond the precincts of revelation, and failed to illumine the inscrutable future with the feeble flame of reason and philosophy. But, from one of such various reading, versatility of talent, and philological acuteness, as we esteem our author to be, the Christian church had a right to expect, that instead of these high endowments being employed to dethrone the truth and power of revelation, they would have been used to rescue it from any reputed scandal which skepticism has attempted to fasten upon it. The divine Scriptures have been charged with an ambiguity which admitted of their being applied in proof of almost any dogma or theory that human ingenuity can produce. And with weak minds, the conclusion, that if God had given a revelation to man, it would have been in such terms as that there could have been no doubts resting upon its meaning; and that it is shown by the conflicting uses of the Bible that it cannot be a book from God; has been used to annoy, confound, and sink them in the depths of infidel darkness. We were not a little surprised, therefore, indeed we were deeply afflicted, when, upon the perusal of the volume before us, we saw given the elements of a wider currency to this reproach upon the

sacred Scriptures, under the sanction of one whom, if we had not been permitted to esteem as a friend, we nevertheless could admire for his great ability and worth. Not to admit the validity of this objection against the truth and integrity of the Bible, still we must concede that we have nowhere met with a stronger justification of it, than is furnished in the mode of argumentation employed in this treatise upon the resurrection. Whether the fundamental idea which is developed in this book germinated in his own prolific fancy, or whether it was suggested by the "theory" of "Swedenborg," with which our author admits a "substantial identity," we know not; nor is it of any considerable importance to know this. For it is not the naked "theory" from which we apprehend that the danger will arise, in the circulation of this book, so much as from the ratiocination by which it is attempted to be supported. On page 238 the professor says: "That without acceding to the full extent to the canons of interpretation adopted in the accommodation school of Semler and others in Germany, we may still admit that the principle is to be in some degree recognized in the didactic procedures of Christ and the apostles." If Professor Bush has given us a sample in this treatise of the results arising from the application of the principles of "the accommodation school," only in "some degree," our readers will be able to judge what would be the fruit of the application of the "canons" of "Semler and others in Germany," when applied in their "full extent." For if a fact so palpable as is the resurrection of the body of Jesus Christ -a fact, which, since the memorable morning of its occurrence until this hour, has been continuously and almost universally believed a fact so undeniably essential to the truth and integrity of the Christian religion; indeed, that fact which has been to the hopes of every Christian as the "mountain of the Lord;"-if such a fact, under the influence of the principles of interpretation employed by the "accommodation school," and that, too, when applied only in "some degree," is made to fade away to mere appearances, pray what would become of our gospel if these rules were applied without restraint? And then, too, when language, than which we cannot imagine words to be more explicit, nor to have been uttered with greater absoluteness in regard to their application, than is that of John v, 28, 29, in relation to the general resurrection of mankind, is made, by the violence of the construction which is put upon it, to only "seem" to speak what the most natural sense of the words would lead us to suppose was meant by them,-what, we ask again, are we to conclude respecting the canons of interpretation to which they have been subjected, in order to make out VOL. V.-13

this alledged verbal deception? Whether these are the legitimate results of the "canons" of that "school," we shall not attempt to decide; but the results arise in the course of our author's attempts to disprove the doctrine of a bodily resurrection, and the argument for the support of his view of a "psychical body developed at death." They are at all events, then, chargeable upon his theory of the resurrection; and as this is the product of his reason and philosophy, rather than the fruit of the teachings of the Bible, "as understood in its literal import," they may be deemed as pretty conclusive proof of the impotency of reason and philosophy to unlock to us the unknowable secrets of the future. The New Testament formally announces the doctrine of the resurrection "of all that are in the graves," but it does not inform us "how the dead are raised up or with what bodies they come," otherwise than in this general sense, that they are sown natural bodies, and are raised spiritual bodies. This is the amount of our information upon the subject.

Whoever, then, shall substitute the mere deductions of philosophy for revelation is chargeable with an act of the highest folly: and whoever shall subject the authoritative teachings of revelation to, and make our knowledge of their meaning depend upon, philosophical speculations, is not, in our judgment, less guilty of presumption.

New-York, 1845.

0.

ART. II.-1. General View of the Geology of Scripture. By GEORGE FAIRHOLME, Esq.

2. Scripture and Geology. By Rev. PYE SMITH, D. D.

THE problem of the world's origin is one under which philosophy has been staggering for nearly four thousand years. But what has been the result of its toilsome lucubrations, its indefatigable effort to search out and reveal the primeval history of this mundane system? Have philosophers been able to thread its mazes, and to pour the light of discovery and of science upon the darkness that has ever brooded over the birth of nature; or does this problem still remain unsolved-the crux philosophorum of the world? Solutions have, indeed, been numerous as the ages through which the problem has stood; but it may justly be added,-various as are the ever-changing phases of man and nature. Human language was not more utterly confounded in the scenes of the Babel confusion,

than is human science before this more durable Babel tower-the problem of the world's origin.

One tells us that the origin of all things is in air; another, that it is in fire; another places it in water; and still another, in earth. One tells us that the universe has existed from eternity; another, that matter is eternal,-but that the present order of the universe has been brought about by the slow operation of physical causesa thing supposed to be by no means incredible, especially when these causes have had millions of ages assigned for the sphere of their operations. It must, however, be confessed that these little physici, though it took them so long to perfect the system of nature, nevertheless possessed not a little mechanical skill and plastic energy. Alas for them! They must all have perished about six thousand years ago; for since that period the world has given but few evidences of their existence. And, indeed, it has been getting so sadly out of repair, both morally and physically, that according to certain modern philosophers, it is soon to pause in its course, to receive "extensive and thorough repairs." But admitting that the "laws of nature are immutable," and therefore that "physical causes" do not die, a curious problem arises for solution, viz.-If no sensible progress has been made in the beauty and perfection of nature, notwithstanding the unceasing operation of these physical causes, for the past six thousand years; how long did it take them to bring it to that degree of perfection and beauty it then possessed-when the eye of intelligence first beheld its glories-glories which caused the morning stars to sing together and the sons of God to shout for joy-and when the first record was entered upon its history?

But, just here, old Chaos and Night, personages that figure largely and sustain important functions in the earlier philosophy of man, however much they may want for respect now-a-days when philosophy has become "full grown," slip in a claim that disturbs greatly the quietude of our ancient physici in their claims to the earth's paternity. We are, indeed, to consider them not exactly physical, but rather mythological, causes. Aristotle* says, "The Theologi affirm that all things were born from night; the Physici, that all things were mingled together." But the Orphean fragments bid us "sing of Night, the father of gods and men,-Night, the genitor of all

Aristotle very curiously remarks concerning the animal creation:-"If men and animals have sprung from the earth, they must either have crawled out as worms, or come out of eggs."-De Gen. An., (ascribed to Aristotle.) † Metamorphoses.