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    MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS.

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    Untitled Article

    ( 1 S 8 )

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    Difficulties on the Subject of the Resurrection , Maids tone , Feb . 12 , 181 5 * Sir , TH OUGH I by no means wish to interrupt your correspondent Credo [ p . 25 , ] in his purpose of

    obviating the difficulties alleged by your Cambridge correspondent , in what he conceives to be a more satisfactory manner than I was enabled to do ^ yet justice to myself , and the cause 1 have espoused , requires that I should correct a palpable mis-statement whieh occurs at the commencement of his

    letter , and which appears and influences his remarks throughout . He sets out with the phrase * ' physiological correspondence ' as descriptive of the Letter of Cantabrigiensis , and consequently of the subject for our mutual consideration . He also states ,

    that the leading difficulty to be considered was , whether if a man dies wholly , a resurrection is within the bounds of probability . The difficulty which he has not very judiciously severed , is thus ingenuously and succinctly stated by Cantabrigiensis

    himself : ** \ fX die wholly a resurrection appears scarcely within the bounds Of possibility . There may be a new creation , but can the regenerated being be myself ? If there be nothing to constitute my individuality but the will and power of the Creator , I seem reduced to the absurdity of thinking

    that my consciousness may be conferred on any number of created forms . " * Thus it clearly appears that he felt doubts concerning the possibility of a resurrection by the energy of the Creator alone , independent of some secondary means , such as the " preservation of consciousness" in the

    interval between death and the resurrection . He suspected that a complete resurrection or restoration of vital existence after it had wholly ceased to be , involved some absurdity , and

    consequently was not an object even of infinite power . To this difficulty I undertook to reply , by shewing that it is equally in the power of the Greater to restore life and consciousness

    as it was originally to impart , present and withdraw these blessings : and that it is sufficiently agreeable to the

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    analogy of nis actual proceedings both in the ordinary course of nature aad by miracle ; and further , that he can receive no assistance whatever , from secondary means , all created existence , whether material * " mental or

    otherwise , existing only as the pure effect of his power ; and consequently being entirely * at his disposal either to preserve , remove or restore at his pleasure . This was the leading subject of our discussion , or at least

    which I undertook to discuss ; as I perfectly coincided with him in opinion , that the hypothesis of Or . Watts , concerning " an indestructible germ of matter , being the nucleus of the regenerated man , is altogether a gratuitous supposition /*

    The question between us , therefore , instead of being of a physiological nature , and relating to the probability of aL resurrection , by any such secondary means as Credo appears to have iu contemplation , was wholly theological , or relative to what was possible as the pure result of the divine

    energies , Whatever Credo may be about to do in his next letter by way of more effectually clearing up the difficulties of Cantabrigiensia , he has hitherto done ; very little except misrepresent * ing and distorting his expressions ,

    and making heavy complaints against me , for not answering him by such arguments as he deems most cogent In No . 1 , of his remarks , he twice repeats his misreprgsention of the

    leading difficulty ; and then complains of me for replying directly to it , instead of wandering into other topics . He ii displeased with the length of my argument , and that it is metaphysical . The first of these inconveniences be

    haa himself sufficiently remedied , though so much at the expense of perspicuity and sense , particularly at the closing sentence of his abridgment ( 1 )» that I should much rather he had left it to speak for itself in its original * uninviting condition . * The reason why it could not be physical has been explained ; it necessarily relates

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    Miscellaneous Communications.

    MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1816, page 138, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2450/page/10/