42 
REVIEW. 
dust, proving the truth of the denunciation, “Dust thou art, 
and unto dust thou shalt return.” Yet not a particle is lost ; 
and being indestructible, identity is maintained — one original 
atom sufficing for this quite as well as many atoms, or even 
all, — while the union of the soul and body will again take place 
when the last trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be 
raised, to die no more. 
Dr. Copland, in his * Commentary on Life and Death/ 
observes — ■“ It is nowhere said in Scripture that the iden- 
tical body which dies shall rise again, but that man shall arise 
— shall again have a material body attached to his soul — a 
body that shall spring from the remains of his former one, 
but changed , and instead of being formed to decay and perish, 
shall have an immortal nature.” The Apostle Paul, likewise, 
tells us that “ there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual 
body ; and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we 
shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” The new and 
incorruptible body is the result then of a transformation of 
the elements of the corruptible one, and these are as safely 
preserved after the influence of fire, as in the lead-encased 
coffin, or by the process of embalming. To ask how this 
change is effected, is attempting to be learned above that 
which is written, and indulging in curious questions the 
solution of which is neither profitable nor useful ; suffice it 
for us to know and to believe, “ the dead shall be raised 
incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” 
The objection that burning the dead is a “ heathenish, 
barbarous, and unchristian custom” is met by our author, 
who shows that it was customary to do so among many, if 
not most, of the nations of antiquity ; and even by the Jews 
it was considered as one of the highest honours that could be 
paid to a deceased king. He acknowledges that the act has 
been prohibited in Christian countries on various pretences, 
but says — 
“ I can nowhere find the practice actually condemned by Christian writers 
on religious grounds, with any show of reason ; and surely no person of 
common sense will venture to assert that the way a man’s dead body is 
disposed of can have any influence on his future state. Are we not taught 
that at the last, the world itself, and all thereon, will be consumed by fire ? 
