A new basis of belief in immortality / by John S. Farmer.

  • Farmer, John S.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new basis of belief in immortality / by John S. Farmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    45 sign of tlie direction of the current of modern thought, to note how many of the most prominent preachers of every denomination have given up as utterly untenable and incredible the former, and as regards the latter doctrine, not a few are now boldly proclaiming the spiritual nature of the resurrection in contradistinction to the theory of a physical rehabilitation after death. All these changes and modifications are in the very direction which Spiritualism has indicated from the first, and are fairly traceable to its influence—an influence which, I think, will be brought to bear more and more upon the Christian Church, as a vitalising and spiritualising spiritnoJists—in fact, there is very little in the entire sermon to •which exception could he taken, and, if space permitted, the whole discourse would be well worthy of a place in these pages. The italics in the extracts are my own. With reference to the purpose of the Kesurrection, he says;—“The Lord had to reveal Himself at once and substantially as a being of two worlds. Amd this was an absolutely new and transcendent thought. There was nothing in the mind of the Apostles, or of anyone, which could have led to the concepiicm. of it—a man perfect in all the attributes of humanity, a man as really and substantially as they were men, moving about among them in this material world as if lie belonged to it, and yet manifestly not belonging to it; but at home, as they were at home on earth, in the invisible, celestial, eternal world, “ They could have understood a man coming back through the unclosed gates of Hades, and taking his place once more as a child at home by the world's hearth-lire, for they had seen it. Not once only the grave had given back its dead at the Saviour's bidding; not once only had they seen ‘a man raised up by Christ,' taking his place and doing his work once more among his brethren of the human race. Or they could have imagined a glorious Celestial Prince appearing in his splpndour to set up his kingdom, to compel the homage of every knee, the confession of every lip; and to fulfll thus the cherished dream of the nation and of their own longing hearts. They might have pictured to themselves the Man of Sorrows returning to the work of this life in the old sad form of His humiliation; or the Apocalypse of the reigning Messiah coming with His angelic legions to restore the kingdom, and to bless, by conquering and ruling, the world. But this vision of the Man of two worlds, at home with them in the flesh, touching them, moving, speaking, eating, drinking before them, and yet with an awful atmosphere of the celestial and eternal state around Him;whieh they felt trembling in their most familiar intercourse, teas a thing quite out of the range of their imagination; and it brought an absolutely new idea andpotcer to bear upon mankind The ideas current at the time as to the nature of the life beyond the grave were exceedingly vague aud uncertain. The Jews could not conceive of the spiritual world as being one as visibly ond tangibly real as the world of our daily tasks; to them it was more or legs shadowy and unreal, and Mr. Brown has here very clearly indicated the true import of the re-appearance of Jesus as an indestructible spiritual man. He came thus to convince tho disciples that as Ho was so should they bo. As a man had lie passed through the portals of death, and as a man did He return to them. It is also evident that Mr. Brown has abandoned tho current idea of a physical resurrection. No other interpretation can be placed on the above passages. Ho states, by implica- tion, that Jesus did not come back, like Lazarus, in tho old physical body; and further on ho says, the disciples might have pictured tho Man of Sorrows returning to tho work of this life in tho old sad form of His humiliation;” but they did not. Wo are not, however, left in any doubt as to his moaning:—“/t was not a bloodless, bodiless ghMl, which was tho only shape in which tho dwellers in Hades represented thom- solvoB to their imagination; it was not an angel, but a living, breathing human form, substantial, palpable, tangiljlo; a man whoso body was yet superior to tho conditions of this mortal flesh, and moved and wrought with thepotoers and prerogatives of an inner and higher world!' Nothing can bo plainer than this. lie continues:— ‘‘The idea which tho Lord sought to develop, tho truth which Ho sought to reveal, otoing those wondrous forty days in which ‘Ho showed Himself alive after His Passion, by many infaillble proofs,' and ‘ spake of tho things which concern tho king- dom of God,' was the essential oneness, tho close association and intor-ponotration of tho two worlds. He came to abolish death; to shoto that there was but a veil between the two great chambers of the temple of man’s life and destiny. This was the cssaitial idea He came to destroy death, and him that had the power of death—that is, the devil—by