Restitution a general restitution of all the preceding emperors on two medals; the one bearing an altar, the other an Resurrec eagle without the REST.

tion.

I

Definition.

2

Plan of the article.

3

slate un

known to some ob

RESTIVE, or RESTY, in the menege, a stubborn, unruly, ill-broken horse, that stops, or runs back, instead of advancing forward.

RESTORATION, the same with restauration. See RESTAURATION.

In England, the return of King Charles II. in 1660, is, by way of eminence, called the Restoration; and the 29th of May is kept as an anniversary festival, in commemoration of that event, by which the legal and episcopal government was restored.

RESTORATIVE, in Medicine, a remedy proper for restoring and retrieving the strength and vigour both of the body and animal spirits.

All under this class, says Quincy, are rather nutrimental than medicinal; and are more administered to repair the wastes of the constitution, than to alter and rectify its disorders.

RESTRICTION, among logicians, is limiting a term, so as to make it signify less than it usually does. RESTRINGENT, in Medicine, the same with astringent. See ASTRINGENTs.

RESULT, what is gathered from a conference, inquiry, meditation, or the like; or the conclusion and effects thereof.

RESURRECTION, in Theology, is a rising again from the state of the dead; and is that event, the belief of which constitutes one of the principal articles in the Christian creed.

In treating of this object of our faith, it has been usual to mention, first, the resurrection of our Blessed Lord, with the character of the witnesses, and the authenticity of the gospel history by which it has been proved, and from which, as a consequence, ours is inferred. But as most of the arguments for this resurrection are contained in the gospels, and as merely to repeat them would afford, we hope, but little information to most of our readers, we mean here to take a view of the several grounds on which the belief of a future existence is supposed to be founded; to collect together some of the sentiments of authors and nations concerning the place where departed spirits reside; concerning the nature of their present state; concerning the kinds of their future destination; that we may afterwards see how far their notions differ and agree with what we consider as the doctrines of Scripture.

The notion Of a future state, there have sometimes been found a of a future few wandering and obscure tribes who seemed to entertertain no notion at all; though it should be remarked, that some of these were likewise observed in so low a scure tribes. degree of savage barbarity as not to be acquainted with the use of the bow, the dart, or the sling, and as not knowing how to wield a club, or to throw a stone, as a weapon of defence *.

*Sec Robertson's Hist. of

America.

Wherever the human mind has been cultivated, or, properly speaking, begun to be cultivated, the opinion has likewise generally prevailed that human existence is not confined to the present scene; nay, so very general has this notion been found among mankind, that many are puzzled how to account for what they suppose to be almost next to its universality.

To explain the phenomenon, some have imagined that it is a notion derived by tradition from primeval re

ed bon from pret

velation. They suppose that the first parent of man- Resurr kind, as a moral agent accountable for his conduct, was informed by his Maker of every thing which it was of importance for him to know; that he must have been he acquainted with this doctrine of a future state in parti- of this to cular; and that he could hardly fail to communicate a tion deri matter so interesting to his posterity. They suppose, too, that the history of the translation of Enoch must have made a great noise in the world, and that the remembrance of it must have been long retained and widely diffused; and they find in the book of Job plain intimations of a resurrection from the dead, which, from the manner in which they are introduced, they think that very ancient patriarch must have received through this channel.

tion.

6

It is not thought to be any objection to these suppo- The us sitions, that the Most High, when delivering his laws objection from the top of Mount Sinai, did not enforce them by to this q the awful sanctions of a future state. The intelligent force. reader of the Scriptures knows that the sanctions of a future state belong to a different and more universal dispensation than was that of Moses; that the primeval revelation related to that dispensation; and that the Jewish law, with its temporal sanctions, was introduced only to preserve the knowledge and worship of the true God among a people too gross in their conceptions to have been properly influenced by the view of future rewards and punishments, of such a nature as eye bath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive. He sees at the same time, everywhere scattered through the Old Testament, plain indications of the Mosaic economy being no more than preparatory to the bringing in of a better hope; and he thinks it evident, that such Jews as understood any thing of the nature of that better hope, must have been convinced, that, however the ceremonial rites of their religion might be sufficiently guarded by temporal sanc tions, the fundamental principles of all religion and vir tue are supported by rewards and punishments to be dispensed in a state beyond the grave. See PROPHECY and THEOLOGY.

That the progenitors of the human race must have Reasons in been inspired by their Creator with the knowledge of support their immortality, and of every thing necessary to their the opinion. everlasting welfare, cannot, we should think, be questioned by any one who believes that the world had a beginning, and that it is under the government of goodness and justice. The progress from sense to science is so slow, that however capable we may suppose the earliest inhabitants of this earth to have been of making philosophical discoveries, we cannot believe that the Father of mercies left his helpless creature to discover for himself his future existence. Death, when first presented to him, must have been a ghastly object; and had he been left without any hope of redemption from it, he would undoubtedly have sunk into listless despondency.

But a prospect of immortality is so pleasing to the human mind, that if it was communicated to the first man, it would of course be cherished by his posterity; and there is no difficulty in conceiving how it might be handed down by tradition to very remote ages, 1mong such of his descendants as were not scattered over the face of the earth in small and savage tribes.— In the course of its progress, it would frequently be

rec- new-modelled by the ever active imagination; and at last many absurd and fantastic circumstances would doubtless be combined with the original truth, that death puts not an end to human existence.

im

ne

1

be

But though we are firmly convinced that the first principles of useful knowledge, and among them the doctrine of a future state, were communicated to man by his Maker; and though this doctrine, in large and permanent societies, might certainly be conveyed more or less pure to late posterity through the channel of tradition-we are far from attributing so much to tradition as some writers are disposed to do, or thinking it the only source from which mankind could derive the belief of their existence beyond the grave. In small tribes of savages such a tradition could hardly be preserved; and yet some indistinct notions of a future state have been found among tribes who are said to have lost all traditionary notions even of the being of a God.

Others, therefore, are inclined to believe that, independent of any traditions, mankind might be led by certain phenomena to form some conjectures of a future tured state. They observe, that although a few individuals atu- perhaps may, yet it seldom happens that the whole inno dividuals of any nation are exempted from dreaming: They observe, too, and this observation is founded on experience, that the images of the dead are from the ng, remaining impressions of memory frequently summoned up in the fancy: and that it appears from all the languages of rude nations, who pay the greatest attention to their dreams, and who speak of seeing the dead in their visions, that these images (A) have always been taken by them for realities; nay, some of the learned, and the celebrated Baxter is of the number, are disposed to doubt whether these appearances be not something more than illusions of the brain: But whether they really be so or not, one thing is certain, that all nations in all countries, in the darkest ages and the ru dest periods, are accustomed to dream; and whether sleeping or waking, in the stillness of the night, in the gloom of solitude, in the fondness of friendship, in the rovings of love, the delirium of fever, and the anguish of remorse, to see and converse with the shades of the et. departed; and Lucretius has remarked, that even the inferior animals are not exempted from such illusions of a restless fancy.

For often sleeping racers pant and sweat, Breathe short, as if they ran their second heat; As if the barrier down with eager pace They stretch'd, as when contending for the race. And often hounds, when sleep hath clos'd their eyes, They toss, and tumble, and attempt to rise; They open often, often snuff the air, As if they prest the footsteps of the deer; And sometimes wak'd, pursue their fancy'd prey, The fancy'd deer, that seem to run away, Till quite awak'd, the follow'd shapes decay.

And softer curs, that lie and sleep at home,
Do often rouse, and walk about the room,
And bark, as if they saw some strangers come.
And birds will start, and seek the woods, by night,
Whene'er the fancy'd hawk appears in sight,
Whene'er they see his wing or hear him fight.

CREECH.

These powers of fancy extend wide over animal creation; and it is on this general principle that necromancers and dreamers have in all ages established their trade, that the stories of goblins have at all times so very easily procured belief, and that

The village matron, round the blazing hearth,
Suspends the infant audience with her tales,
Breathing astonishment! Of witching rhymes
And evil spirits; of the deathbed call
Of him who robb'd the widow and devour'd
The orphan's portion; of unquiet souls
Ris'n from the grave to ease the heavy guilt
Of deeds in life conceal'd; of shapes that walk
At dead of night, and clank their chains and wave
The torch of hell around the murderer's head.
AIKENSIDE.

Resurreetion.

Mankind in general would willingly dispense with these troublesome visits of the dead. To prevent the return of the zumbi or the ghost, some nations of Africa use many superstitious rites*; and Kolben tells us, * Voyage to that the frightened Hottentots leave in the hut where a cont person has died all the utensils and furniture, lest the Angola, them in their dreams, and infest them in the night. angry ghost, incensed at their avarice, should haunt Churchill's Voyages. Divines and moralists have laboured to show that these are merely imaginary terrors: but God and nature seem to have determined that they shall produce the same effects upon certain minds as if they were real; and that while there is any sensibility in the heart, while there is any remembrance of the past, and any conjuring timid, shall often meet with the goblins of darkness, the power in the fancy; the ignorant, the benighted, the spectres of the tomb, the apparitions that hover round the grave, and the forms of the dead in the middle dream. See SPECTRE.

10 Probable

From these phenomena, which have been so common in all countries and in all ages, what would mankind inferences naturally infer? Would they not infer, that there is from something in the nature of man that survives death, and dreams, &c. that there is a future state of existence beyond the grave? Are not still many specimens of this reasoning preserved in the ancient poets? and is it not thus that Achillest reasons after imagining that he saw the ghost † Hom. Iliad of his friend Patroclus?

'Tis true, 'tis certain, man, though dead, retains
Part of himself; th' immortal mind remains :
The form subsists without the body's aid,
Aerial semblance, and an empty shade.

lib. xxiii.

1. 103.

This

Resurrection.

* Lib. iil.

This night my friend, so late in battle lost,
Stood at my side a pensive plaintive ghost;
Ev'n now familiar as in life he came,
Alas! how diff'rent, yet how like the same. POPE.

Lucretius*, a studious observer of nature, though no friend to the soul's immortality, acknowledges frankly that these phantoms often terrify the mind, haunt us in our sleep, and meet us while awake. He confesses, too, that by such appearances mankind have been led to believe the future existence of the soul; but aware of the consequence,

-Ne forte animas Acherunte reamur
Effugere, aut umbras inter vivos volitare,

he endeavours to explain these curious phenomena on some of the odd and fantastic principles of the Epicureans. In doing this, however, he pretends not to deny that these images appear to be real; but candidly acknowledges that

-They strike and shake

The airy soul, as when we are awake, With stroke so lively, that we think we view The absent dead, and think the image true. CREECH. We here see how the belief of the soul's immortality came to be general among mankind. But for this information we are much more indebted to the poets, who have given us faithful transcripts of nature, than to the philosophers who have wished to entertain us with their own theories, or to those laborious men of erudition, who have dreaded as much to examine the source of an ancient report as the friends of Ulysses to approach the Folly of al- coast of Cimmerian darkness. With them tradition is lowing too the ultimate boundary of research and as gorgons, chimeras, and hydras, have come down to us by traditradition, tion; so they, with great sagacity, suspect that tradition must likewise be at the bottom of the soul's immortality, and occasion the visions and phantoms of the dead.

II

much to

To tradition we have allowed all that it can justly claim; but we cannot allow it to be the only source of this opinion and we have felt the highest indignation upon hearing men of learning and genius affirm, from a false zeal for the honour of revelation, that mankind, without this instruction, could never have acquired the art of building huts to screen them from the cold, or have learned the method of propagating their species! The reader must not here suppose that we allude to Polydore Virgil (B). We have in our eye persons now alive, with whom we have conversed on the subject, and who (terrified at the length to which some philosophers have carried the doctrine of instincts, and others the reasoning powers of the mind) have contended, with the

Having now seen the source of the opinion concern- Opinion of ing the future existence of the soul, and pointed out the philoso natural phenomena by which mankind were led to em-phers. brace it, we come next to review the arguments by which the philosophers attempted to confirm it.

13

Pythagoras believed, with the rest of his country, that Pythago annihilation was never the end, and that nonentity was ras's notion never the beginning of any thing that is. His general of transmi gration. doctrine upon this subject was shortly expressed in very' few words, Omnia mutantur, nihil interit. He afterwards learned from Egyptian priests that the soul migrates into new bodies; and being, it seems, a person of a most extraordinary and astonishing memory, he found there was some truth in the story; for after musing, he began to remember that he was Euphorbus, the son of Pantheus, that was slain by Menelaus in the Trojan war; and upon a jaunt to Peloponnesus, recollected the shield which he had worn at the time of the siege, in one of the temples of Juno at Argos! That none might question the truth of his assertion, his followers presently removed all doubts by the famous argument, the IPSE DIXIT of Egyptian origin.

ence.

14

As Pythagoras taught that human souls are frequent- Plato's dec ly thrust into brute shapes, and, as some imagined, by trine of way of punishment; it occurred to Plato, that all bo-pre-existdies, even the human, are a sort of prisons; and that, in consequence of this confinement, the soul was subjected to the rage of desire, appetite, and passion, and to all the wretched miseries of a jail. To explain this mystery, he supposed that desires and appetites belong to a soul that is purely animal residing in the body. But he was perplexed with another difficulty; fer as he thought highly of the goodness of Deity, he could not imagine how he should imprison us without a crime. He supposed, therefore, that prior to its union with the present body the soul had existed in one of ether, which it still retains; but that even in this etherial body it had felt something of impure desire; and happening to indulge the vicious appetite, had contracted some stains of pollution, for which it was confined in its present body as a house of correction to do penance and improve its morals.

13

Το prove this ideal pre-existence of the soul, Plato And mode availed himself of an opinion that was general in his of proving time, that coincided with the doctrines of Pythagoras, it and that was partly founded on a sort of reasoning and observation. He thought that matter and intelligence are coeternal (see PLATONISM); that there are various orders of souls; that those of both the man and the brute are parts or emanations (c) of the anima mundi, or soul of the world; that all are ultimately parts or emanations of Deity itself; and that all their faculties

are

i

Know first, that heav'n and earth's compacted frame,
And flowing waters, and the starry flame,
And both the radiant lights, one common sonl
Inspires, and feeds, and animates the whole.
This active mind, infus'd through all the space,
Unites and mingles with the mighty mass:
Hence men and beasts the breath of life obtain,
And birds of air, and monsters of the main ;
The ethereal vigour is in all the same,
And every soul is fill'd with equal flame;
As much as earthy limbs, and gross allay
Of mortal members, subject to decay,

Blunt not the beams of heav'n and edge of day (D)..
DRYDEN.

Besides this hypothesis, that in some measure was common to others, Plato had an argument peculiarly his own. Happening to peep into the region of metaphysics, he was somewhat surprised on observing the ideas which we derive from reflection and consciousness; and supposing that they could not have entered by the senses, he naturally, though not very justly, concluded that we must have received them in some state of prior existence.

As, according to him, the soul was eternal, as well as the matter which composed the body, and as their union was only temporary and accidental, he might have been satisfied that the death of the soul was not to be the consequence of their separation, But, some how or other, satisfied he was not. He had recourse to a new argument. As the soul, he said, was an active principle, and a self-moving, it did not depend for its life on another; and therefore would always continue to exist, though the body were reduced to the general mass out of which it was formed. See METAPHYSICS, Part III. chap. iv.

Whether Plato had borrowed any of his doctrines f the from the eastern magi, we pretend not to say. We onsly observe a striking similarity, in some respects, between

his and theirs. In Plato's philosophy, the sun, moon, and stars, were animated beings, and a sort of divinities

tion.

that originally had sprung from the great fountain of Resurreeheat and light, and our earthly bodies a sort of dungeons in which our miserable souls are benighted and debased by desires, appetites, and passions. In the magian philosophy, the Supreme Being was called Oromasdes; was the god of light, or was light itself, and represented by Mithras, a subordinate divinity, and the same with the sun. Another deity of very great power was Arimanes, the god of darkness, who presided over matter, and was the origin of all evil (see POLYTHEISM). The ancient Gnostics, who derived their tenets from this source, believed, with Pythagoras and Plato, in a great number of subordinate genii; and said, that Demiurgus, the god of matter and the soul or spirit of this world, had contrived the bodies of men and brutes; and in the former particularly, as in so many prisons, had confined a number of celestial spirits, that by exposing them to the low desires of appetite and passion, he might seduce them from their allegiance to the God of light, and render them more submissive to himself. From these prisons the Supreme Being was continually making attempts to rescue them; and in the mean time was frequently sending divine messengers to enlighten and instruct them, and to render them capable of returning to the regions of life and happiness, to which they had belonged (E).

The Stoics attempted to simplify this system, which appears anciently to have pervaded Egypt and the east, and which would seem to be no more than variously modified by Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, and others of the more northerly and western nations. None of them allowed a creation out of nothing; and the shaping and modelling of matter into forms was variously explained, according as they happened to be most addicted to superstition, to morals, or to physics. Some ascribed these operations to ancient Time, Chaos, and Darkness, and explained the future changes in nature by the genealogies of these deities; some observing attraction and repulsion, or at least a sort of agreement and discordance among bodies, were inclined to ascribe them to Friendship and Hatred, or Love and Antipathy; some observing, that while one body rose another descended, made Levity and Gravity primary agents; and some taking notice that living bodies sprung from corruption,

were

tion.

17 Of the Stoics.

18

Of Aristotle.

10

Of Critias

The physical hypotheses were what had most charms for the Stoics. From their system immaterial beings were openly excluded; all things were regulated by physical laws or inexorable fate; and all things originated in the To Ev or the First One, which was probably suggested by the Movas of Pythagoras, This To Ev appears to have been a materia prima devoid of all the qualities of body. In their language it was an Agx" or first principle, not subject to change. When it was invested with the properties of body, it then became a Elox or an element; and then, so far as respected its qualities, especially its forms, it was subject to changes almost perpetual. The gods themselves and the souls of men were in this system only modifications of matter (F). Man was composed of their four elements, Fire, Air, Water, and Earth; and upon dissolution, every part returned to the element from which it had come, as the water of a vessel swimming in the sea unites with the ocean when the vessel is broken. This system, it is plain, cannot possibly admit of any separate consciousness of existence (G). The same may be said of the systems of Democritus and Epicurus, and all those who undertook to explain things upon physical principles (H). The chief merit of the physical systems appears to be this: Absurd as they were, it would seem from the whimsical and the almost childish reasoning of Lucretius, that they had a tendency to lead mankind from extravagant hypotheses to something that was similar to observation.

What Aristotle thought of the separate existence of the soul after death is not very certain. The soul he calls an Eλx; and if the reader can divine the meaning of the word, he perhaps can divine the meaning of the Stagyrite, and will then be a better diviner than we. At other times he says, that the soul is something divine; that it resembles the element of the stars; that it is something of a fiery nature; that it is the vicegerent of God in the body; and that the acuteness of the senses, the powers of the intellect, with the various kinds of appetites and passions, depend entirely on the qualities of the blood (1).

Another opinion of very old date was that of the late and others. ingenious Mr Hunter. According to him, the living principle resides in the blood. This opinion, which is mentioned by Moses, was adopted by Critias and others of the ancients. Harvey likewise embraced it. But Mr Hunter, who always wished to be thought an original, inclines to stand at the head of the opinion, and supports it by experiments similar to those of the famed Taliacotius in mending noses. Should any of our readers

Among the Jews, the belief of a future and separate of the existence for a long time was deemed no essential article Jes of their creed. Some thought that the soul was a spark in the moving of the heart; some imagined that it was the breath, and that upon the dissolution of the body it naturally vanished into soft air. The Sadducees denied the existence of either angel or spirit. Many believed the doctrine of ghosts, and were accustomed to invoke them at the grave. It is hence that we hear the prophets complaining that they were seeking from the living God unto dead men. Some imagined that there was a pre-existence of souls; and, in the case of a blind man, asked our Saviour, whether the man or his parents had sinned that he was born blind? Others inclined to a revolution of soul and body, and thought that our Saviour was either Elias or one of the old prophets returned; and a great many new-medelled their opinion of the soul's immortality according to certain passages in Scripture. The inspired mother of Samuel had said, "The Lord killeth and maketh alive : he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.” Isaiah had exclaimed, "Thy dead shall live; together with my dead body shall they arise: Awake, and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.” Daniel had declared, that many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. In the vision of the valley of dry bones, Ezekiel had seen that " at the word of the Lord" the bones came together, bone to his bone, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them above, and the breath came into the bodies, and they lived and stood upon their feet. And a passage of Job led them to suppose, that at some distant and future period a particular time, which was called the last or the latter day, was appointed by heaven for the general resurrection of all those who are sleeping in their graves. "I know (says Job) my Red-emer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.

Whether these passages were fairly interpreted agreeably to their true and original meaning, it is not here our business to inquire. It is sufficient for us to observe, that from them many of the Jews inferred the reality of a general resurrection (K). In this persuasion, Martha, speaking of her brother Lazarus, says to our Lord, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day." This resurrection appears

to