if we can appeal to no fact directly witnessing a communication from the invisible to the visible world,-we are still in the condition of those who have only their ordinary reason to instruct them; and I cannot on this ground understand why your correspondent, and those who think with him, should attach such extreme importance to the special fact of a bodily resurrection, that any questioning of its literal acceptance is considered little less than an upsetting of Christianity itself. Your correspondent treats the supposition of any spiritual evidence of the resurrection as an absurdity. Does he, then, consider Paul's solemn asseveration of having seen the ascended Christ to be a delusion or a falsehood? I have never asserted anything half so offensive to the common belief of Christians as this. Are we to suppose that the Father of our spirits can only communicate with us through our bodies? that his access to us through our souls is impassably closed up? that He can give us no intimation of that spiritual life which is laid up for us with Christ in Him, but by the revival of functions which are appropriate to this terrestrial existence alone, and do not of themselves point beyond it? Such reasoning, if I rightly apprehend its tendency, excludes all revelation of spiritual realities to the soul as an impossibility. Here we are in the body, and we can only know what the body is capable of transmitting to us. This idea has taken such a hold of some minds that they confound all spiritual manifestation with imposition. Speaking of the theory that the evidence of the resurrection was not bodily but spiritual, the Unitarian Layman quotes with evident approval the observation of a friend: "In other words, he said, the advocates of this theory impute to the Almighty the attempt to impose upon mankind by false appearances;" and he then adds this remark of his own: "I suppose that Ewald and his reviewer consider that it was reserved for their superior penetration, after the lapse of eighteen centuries, to detect the imposition." If I thought the writer really understood the meaning of his own words, I should say, their absurdity was only equalled by their irreverence. These gentlemen undertake to affirm, that any direct communication of spiritual truth to our human consciousness, any unveiling under the illumination of the Divine Spirit of the solemn realities of an invisible world to the inward eye of the soul (and how do they dare to measure all history by their personal experience, and declare such things an impossibility?), is nothing better than a deception practised by the Almighty on his creatures; and that men who, in the earnest search after the religious peace of their own souls, have humbly and seriously found reason to believe the fact, can be regarded in no other light than as detectors by their superior penetration of the divine imposture. It has rarely been my lot to encounter language more uncharitable and, in form at least, more profane than this. Had it occurred, where I do

not believe it would have been admitted, in any of the publications of Mr. Holyoake, all parties would have perceived its indecency, and visited it with the reprobation which it merits. For myself, believing as I do in the existence of a spiritual life beyond the limits of the present phenomenal life, and seeing no reason to doubt that under extraordinary circumstances there may be a transmission of intelligence from the higher to the lower world, I declare, without hesitation (and I believe the declaration consistent with the principles of the truest philosophy), that on equal evidence I would recognize with Paul, as an objective reality, the presence of a deceased person from the other world.

I have been charged by your last correspondent with not fully stating the facts on both sides of this question; and I am solemnly exhorted, as a great delinquent in this respect, to "study and imitate" "the calm impartiality of those who have preceded me in the office which I hold," and whose theological conclusions, it is pretty broadly insinuated, I despise (pp. 707 and 717.) The last imputation I have already disposed of, and need not revert to it again. With regard to holding the balance unfairly between conflicting arguments in my teaching, as this is a direct charge on my academic integrity and faithfulness, I shall not descend to reply to it in any other way than by a simple appeal to those who have the means of judging, which the writer has not. In the article in the National, I was not writing a dissertation on the resurrection, where the accusation, if just, would have been to the purpose, but had merely to allude in passing to one particular aspect of it. But in point of fact, I have not left out of view any of the recorded appearances of Christ after his resurrection; I have actually assumed them all, as the very subject of discussion-the question simply being how those appearances are to be interpreted, and how the belief in them originated. The writer does not understand the question at issue. I have remarked, that with a few exceptional traits, which we can probably trace to the hardening influence of a later tradition, those appearances possess a character which it is difficult to reconcile with the presence of a human body such as we alone know and understand it. Let us take for an example one of the most fully recorded of these appearances, that which occurred to the two disciples as they walked to Emmaus (Luke xxiv.). In the course of a prolonged conversation, which turned on Christ and which must have brought up his image vividly before them, though (upon the supposition) his bodily presence was at their side the whole time, and the marks on his hands and feet must have been conspicuous, and though he reasoned with them on the subject of his previous teachings and even upbraided them for their slowness to believe, yet we are told "their eyes were holden that they should not know him." At length in the evening at supper time, when he was breaking bread with them, their eyes were suddenly opened,

and they knew him-when he vanished out of their sight. Now whatever explanation may be given of this narrative, no person reading it for the first time with a mind wholly unprepossessed could, I think, resist the impression that we have here an account of something very different from intercourse through the outward senses. The concluding expression, άφαντος ἐγένετο ἀπ ̓ ἀυτῶν, would never have been used of the ordinary departure of a human body. A similar character attaches to other descriptions of Christ's re-appearances. The fact that these re-appearances were vouchsafed only to believers, is made light of by your October correspondent; and the Unitarian Layman following him, accuses me of "quietly assuming as a fact what is neither proved nor admitted." I should have thought he must have retained enough of logic from his academic training to know that I cannot be called on to prove a negative. I assumed nothing. I said then, as I say now, that all recorded appearances are to believers only. If he or the "Unitarian Minister" can adduce a single instance to the contrary, I will confess myself mistaken. But all the extant evidence that we have is wholly on my side. Had there been a bodily resurrection, I hold it impossible that, familiar as Christ's person must have been to thousands, both friends and enemies, in Jerusalem and in Galilee, and with those unmistakeable marks on the hands and feet, he should not have been frequently recognized, and that if he were recognized by those who were not among his followers, we should have heard nothing of it. Your correspondent for October says, "It is inconceivable to me that during forty days in Galilee, Jesus should have been seen by absolutely none but believers." I agree with him entirely, on the supposition that a body had re-appeared; but I am surprised that a writer of his acuteness should not have seen that in replying in this way to my statement, he was taking for granted the very point in dispute between us, viz., that it was a body. It is easy to assume an authoritative tone and say, "These texts have been explained against Woolston and others often enough." Are we to take the writer's warrant for the sufficiency of these explanations? Let them be produced, and we shall see. No one knows better than the writer, that assertions were made, and reasonings deemed conclusive, in the old deistical controversy which would not stand the test of modern criticism. But we are not left to inference alone from extant data in this matter. One of the most industrious and exact of the New Testament writers, who traced up all his statements to their primitive source, has recorded it as the distinct declaration of an apostle, that Christ's manifestation after his death was limited to a select number of witnesses. I am not conscious of urging this text particularly hard, when I say, that no language can be more express and distinct than what is put into the mouth of Peter (Acts x. 41). It is defined at once negatively and posi

tively. Christ was made manifest (éμpavñ yevéolai) “not to all the people" (by which I understand, it was not a promiscuous, general manifestation), "but" (and here to exclude all uncertainty, the parties to whom he was to shew himself are mentioned as specially appointed for the purpose) "to witnesses previously chosen (TOOKεXELPOTOVημévois) by God."

The Unitarian Minister" objects to our taking the statements of Paul as the proper point of departure in this question, and considers it as a "needless, if not wilful, inversion of the natural order of events" (p. 582). These are strong assertions, and ought to be strongly supported. He adds, "I believe the common opinion of our four existing Gospels having been written before the destruction of Jerusalem to be quite beyond reasonable cavil" (p. 583). As this is merely the opinion of an individual writer, unsupported by proof, we may set against it the opinion of men of at least equal learning, who have come to a different conclusion. Where no proofs are adduced, one assertion is as good as another. I do not hesitate to avow my own belief, founded on some inquiry into the subject, that there are wider intervals between the dates of the several Gospels than the foregoing statement admits, and that none of them, in their actual form, can be proved to have been written anterior to the destruction of Jerusalem. We find no distinct allusion to any of them by name before the second half of the second century; and though they must have existed, and we find clear evidence of their materials, before that time, it seems to me impossible to assign with precision their actual date. Their substantial materials, their record of Christ's sayings and doings, and the spirit animating them, so different from anything in Heathenism and the old Judaism, are, I doubt not, an authentic representation of the belief of the apostolic age; but before those materials were put together in the form in which we now possess them, I cannot feel equally sure, that some later elements of belief may not have been introduced into them; I even think here and there we can discern traces of the fact. But there is another consideration of some weight which the "Unitarian Minister" will be able to appreciate, though it may not be so easy to make it intelligible to those who have not much exercised their minds in inquiries of this description. There is a marked difference of thought and feeling between the several Gospels, implying progressive development in their conception of the facts of Christ's ministry and of the fundamental ideas of his teaching, which cannot be supposed to have taken place except during a very considerable lapse of time. In Matthew we have probably the original Palestinian tradition respecting Jesus. Mark's position in the series I leave undecided. But between the general tone of thought pervading Matthew and belonging to its original Judaic materials, and that which characterizes Luke, written for

a heathen convert, there is a wide and perceptible difference which implies the occurrence of a considerable interval of time. The difference between John and any one of the three earlier Gospels is so marked, that it is hardly possible it could have been written till towards the end of the first century. But with regard to all the greater Epistles of Paul (and I mention these not as excluding the lesser, but merely to confine myself to what is on all hands undisputed), we are not only certain of their genuineness and authenticity, but we can fix within a year or two the date of every one of them. I return, then, unshaken to my original position, that in the writings of Paul we have the oldest, the most direct and the most reliable testimony to the resurrection of Christ-the first clear evidence of that profound conviction of a risen Christ (implying some fact as its cause) which had transformed the mind of the apostle himself, and was introducing a new spiritual vitality into the world. We are justified, I contend, in taking our point of departure in this question from the statements of Paul, and in constructing from the point of view thus given to us, the statements of other writings which, though recording the earthly ministry of Christ, wove together, at a later date and possibly under later influences, into the form in which we now have them, the materials of which they consist. Now what Paul says in 1 Cor. xv. seems to me a cardinal statement in this matter. He speaks distinctly of successive manifestations of Christ-to Simon Peter, to the Twelve, then to five hundred brethren at one time (the majority of them surviving to the time when Paul wrote), again to James, then to all the apostles, lastly to Paul himself. Paul makes no distinction between any of these manifestations. He puts his own seeing of Christ on the same level with that of the other apostles. The very same verb is used in every instance-on. How is this to be explained? It ought not to be passed over without notice. Was Paul speaking the truth in this or a falsehood, or labouring under a delusion? He must have known from tradition (ő kaì mapéλaßov) whether the apostles who preceded him had conversed with a body or not. Yet here we find one word, implying one mode of manifestation, applied to appearances, some of which, according to the usual conception of this subject, must have occurred before, and some after the ascension-some in the body, some out of the body. His rising again is considered in this chapter of Corinthians as an anticipation of the general resurrection of the dead —an example, as it were, beforehand of the general destiny of the race. Hence it is argued, that "if there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not risen;" inasmuch as the law under which alone he could rise, would not in that case form a part of the divine economy. In the same sense, he is called the "first fruits of them that have been laid to rest." His rising again was valuable to believers, as an earnest and exemplification