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    are ignorant whether there be not passions in the human mind which , in this world , remain dormant and undiscovered , for want of objects to excite them ; and with respect to the manner of our resurrection , we are described as the " workmanship of the Creator j " and all Deists have conceded , that the -Creator who first made us could

    remake us after dissolution . The sculptor can mould his plaister into various shapes , can again confound it into a general mass , and again fashion them from the same ; shall we deny the same power to the Great Sculptor of

    nature ? Lord Herbert , in his celebrated Dialogues , p . 169 , lias the fallowing admission : " His restoring the dead to life seems miraculous , because it is rare and unusual ; though yet , if we consider things aright , the birth of

    a child would be the greater wonder : it not being so strange , that any which once was , should be again , as that which never was , should be at all . " Mr . Paine , also , in the 2 nd part of his Age of Reason , makes the same confession , expressing his hope and

    expectation of futurity . We , as Christians , are no more bound to explain how this hope will be realized than the sceptic is . If God raise the dead , whether they have the same bodies they had formerly , or whether some other particles of matter be in the

    composition of them , or whether they will not have something added to counteract their former mortality , docs he not do what he promised ? The question is certainly a very immaterial one ; and Alexander , in his Paraphrase on Corinthians , very pertinently remarks , that it is not the most

    interesting that can be imagined , since it may be reduced to this point—Whether our houses from heaven , us the apostle

    part out of the old materials . Nor do we consider that this physiological or metaphysical controversy at all involves the question of an intermediate state ; and we wen * some months

    . since , greatly surprised to hear the horror expressed by a venerable and learned ornament of the Dissenting Church , on the accidental introduction , by INIr . Belsham , of his ( Mr . Belsham's ) disbelief of an intermediate state preceding a day of general judgment . On the occasion alluded

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    to , the sleep of the soul / ' or this temporary suspension of existence was denounced as incompatible with any rational hope of futurity . Surely nothing could be more unphilosophi , cal than such an inference . We well know the nattering prospect which the dying * Christian sees , of an

    immediate junction with those friends who have gone before him to their lonohome ; but how vulgar is the preju . dice against the heterodox belief in the temporary suspension of existence between the days of death and jud g ^ ment , and an interregnum perhap s ordained by the superior wisdom of the Deity 1 This is purely a

    speculative subject , and we by no means assert a confident opinion against an intermediate state ; but from the consideration we have hitherto given it , we do conceive that the doctrine of Materialism is here consistent with reason and scripture , and would argue against it . We shall make use of some very remarkable arguments of Alexander , selected from pp . 46 , 47 .

    < c The time which passes between death and the resurrection may be very short . And though it should be some ages longer than we apprehend , yet to them that sleep , and are unconscious of what passes , it will appear less than a moment ; and the very same instant which separates them from this mortal life , must , to their thought and apprehension , be that which unites them for ever to their Saviour and

    their God . I do not mention it with any considerable stress , that there seems a sort of equality , which is not unpleasing to the human mind , in such a constitution as we arc speaking of , where no person is distinguished from another , cither to his advantage or loss , on account of a difference in the time of his

    birth , which is wholly arbitrary , and constitutes no part of his character or desert : but each man appearing in his own order , and receiving at the hand of Providence the materials of his future character and hope , having fiJJcd up the station assigned him either to his honour or disgrace ,

    retires at the appointed time , and waits till a general day of retribution ; to receive , in common with all who have home any part in the concerns of human life , that sentence which his conduct has deserved , from the universal Judge and

    Parent . And one person has no more reason to complain , that an examination has not been made into his character and conduct before this time , than another thai , he was not brought into the scene sooner . "

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    \ J 2 Review . —~ Recent Controversy on Materialism .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1822, page 172, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2510/page/44/