DEAR SIR, 305 LETTER XXIV. 1824. THE subject of death is spoken of in the sacred books, after the manner of the eastern writers. St. John saw HIм upon a pale horse, whence an author of powerful intellect writes, "The existence of death must therefore be either real or personal, or relative and independent, or a mere privation; these being the only modes of personal existence which we can conceive."* Have we not a more simple and correct view of the subject in looking upon death, to be only a certain effect of sin †, in producing such a complete disruption of the body, as to unfit it for all the living purposes of the soul? Previous to his fall, Adam was not obnoxious to death; the organization of his body was not liable to disruption. He disobeyed his Creator, and was accursed from his first condition: his nature became essentially corrupt, and he necessarily sinned. In consequence of the curse so laid upon Adam, this corruption was entailed upon * Drew on the Resurrection of the Human Body. + Rom. v. 12. X his progeny through generation. They also necessarily are sinners and obnoxious to death.* But the soul t, which proceeds from God, does not die. The body alone therefore is affected by original sin. But our bodies die in consequence of personal sin. † Personal sin is, therefore, an effect of original sin. Now, the effect which is upon the body must be through its organization. The organization of the body is therefore affected by original sin. The Scriptures teach us that this effect is in the power of the flesh overcoming the Spirit, and in the liability of the body to death. And thus do nature and reason and the Scriptures agree. We thus see that sin and death are the natural states of man, in consequence of the fall. Let us now enquire into the nature of life, both temporal and eternal. 1 Socrates and Cicero had just notions of life, so far as just notions could be obtained by men ignorant of the scriptural knowledge of the soul. "Tell me then," said the sage, "what it is which gives life to the pody? The soul!" And the Roman philosopher speaks of the same άveμos, as animating and producing the different mental operations in the body; cui præpositus est. But, uncertain of the immortality of the Rom. v. 12. 1 Cor. xv. 53. + Is. lvii. 16. soul, uncertain indeed of its independent existence, their notions of it also were crude and uncertain, and laid the foundation of that error, which has so long struggled against the philosophy of revelation. The heathens, who were deeply versed in speculative wisdom, recognized a life of understanding, and reasoned upon its separate existence, and thus provided a mental soul for man; whence arose the error so generally prevalent in the Christian system, upon the high authority of its progenitors, that the soul of man is a mental, and not a spiritual being; and which error may again be traced in the learned notion of endowing man with a life of understanding, distinct from his lives of vegetation and volition. In regarding the body as an instrument, we have compared it in two cases, but a third is necessary to complete the comparison. Every machine is applied to some particular purpose. What, therefore, let me ask, is the purpose to which the energy of our being is properly applied? Nor is this an idle question; look at the different answers, which both the language and conduct of men give to it. Some are in search of a purpose, some only acknowledge a selfish purpose; whilst others reject every selfish motive, and give us a higher motive * Vide Ellis, p. 387, and |