Wesley Corpus

They are only the temporary clothing of the body, which it wholly puts off in the grave. The soul seems to be the immediate clothing of the spirit, the vehicle with which it is connected from its first existence, and which is never separated from it, either in life or in death. Probably it consists of ethereal or electric fire, the purest of all matter. It does not seem to be affected by the death of the body, but envelopes the separate, as it does the embodied, spirit; neither will it undergo any essential change, when it is clothed upon with the immortal body at the resurrection. May not the Apostle have an eye to this in those remarkable words:--“We that are in this tabernacle” (this corruptible flesh and blood) “do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed,” (divested of all covering, which belongs only to the Father of spirits,) “but clothed upon” with the glorious resurrection-body, covering both our soul and spirit? (2 Corinthians v. 4.) This will swallow up, totally destroy, to Swntov,-that which was mortal, namely, the flesh and blood, which alone was liable to death. If we understand the words of the Apostle in this sense, all the difficulty vanishes away. We allow, there can be no medium between material and immaterial. But still there is room for a wide and essential difference between the soul and the body; the latter implying that original portion of matter which is now clothed with flesh and blood; the former, that vehicle of ethereal fire which immediately covers the immortal spirit. CoNGLETON, March 31, 1786. REv. SIR, February 5, 1756. I AM favoured with yours of January 26, for which I return you my sincere thanks. Your frank and open manner of writing is far from needing any apology, and I hope will never occasion your receiving such treatment from me, as I did from Mr. Law, who, after some very keen expressions, in answer to: the second private letter I sent him, plainly told me he desired to hear “no more on that head.” I do desire to hear, and am very willing to consider, whatever you have to wdvance on the head of Christian perfection.