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ESSAY
TOWARD THE
[SECT.
II.
Bence,
or
forcible proof,
and
may possibly
be
interpreted
to another
sense,
I
shall
not
long insist upon them
however,
it
may
not
be amiss
just
to
mention
a
few
of
them,
and
pass
away.
Ps.
lxxiii.
24, 26.
"
Thou
shalt
guide
me with
thy
counsel, and
afterward
receive
me
to glory
:
My
flesh
and
my
heart
faileth,
but
God
is
the strength
of
my
heart, and
my
portion
for ever."
In
these
verses,
"
re-
ceiving to glory,"
seems
immediately to
follow
a
guidance
through
this world
;
and
when the
flesh
and
heart of the
Psalmist
should
fail him
in death,
God
continued
to
be
his
portion
for
ever.
God
would receive him
to
himself
as such a portion, and thereby
he
gave
strength, or cou-
rage,
to his
heart,
even in
a
dying hour.
It
would
be
a
very odd and
unnatural
exposition
of
this
text,
to
inter-
pret
it
only
of
the resurrection,
thus,
"
thou
shalt guide
me, by thy counsel,
through
this
life,
and,
after the long
interval
of
some
thousand
years,
thou wilt receive
me
to
glory."
.Eccles.
xii.
7.
"
Then
shall
the
dust return
to
the
earth,
as
it
was,
and
the
spirit
to
God that
gave
it."
It
is
confessed,
the word
spirit,
in
the
Hebrew,
is
the
same with
"
breath
;"
and
is
represented,
in some places
of
scrip-
ture,
as
the spring
of
animal
life
to the body
:
Yet
it
is
evident, in many
other
places,
the word spirit
signifies
the
conscious principle
in man,
or
the intelligent
being,
which knows
and reasons, perceives and
acts.
The
scripture
speaks
of
being
"
grieved
in
spirit;" Is.
liv. 6.
of
rejoicing
in
spirit;"
Luke
x.
"
The
spirit of
a
man
knoweth the things
of a
man
;"
1
Cor,
ii. 11.
"
There
is
a spirit
in man
;"
that
is,
a principle
of
un-
derstanding; Job
xxxii.
S.
And this spirit, both
of
the
wicked and the righteous,
at
death,
returns
to
God
;
Eccles. xii.
7.
to God,
who,
as
I
hinted
before,
is
the
judge of
all
the
world
of
spirits,
probably
to
be
further
determined
and disposed
of,
as to its
state
of
reward or
punishment.
Is.
lvii.
1,
2.
"
The
righteous
is
taken
away from
the
evil
to come,
he shall
enter into
peace,
they
shall
rest
in
their
beds,
each
one walking in
his
uprightness:"
The
soul
of
every
one,
that
walketh uprightly,
shall,
at
death,
enter
into a state
of
peace,
while-
his body
rests
in
the
bed
of
dust.