IMMORTALITY OF THEE.., SOUL
'I
~
DESTINY OF THE WICKED.
5 THE
REV. N. LR'PICE, D.D.,
PRESIDENT OF WESTMINSTER COLLEGET
PHILIADELPHIA.'
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION,
1334 CHESTNUT STREET,
AND 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by
THE TRtUSTEES OF THE
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
WESTOOTT &  trOMSON,
Stereotypers, Philada. 
PREFACE.
THiE following short treatise was commeI ced several years ago, at the earnest request of the Board
of Publication. After the most of it had been written, the entire failure of the writer's healthb-compelling him to resign his pastoral charge in New
York-made it necessary to lay it aside, and until
a very recent period the idea of completing it was
abandoned. At the renewed request of the Board
it has now been finished, and is given to the public
with the hope and prayer that, by the divine blessing, it may be of some use in the defence of the
truth.
The discussion of the subjects of the Immortality
of the Soul and of the Destiny of the Wicked
might embrace a very wide range of argument, in                                           3 
E REFACE.
eluding extended philosophical investigation and
much learned criticism of the original languages
of the Scriptures. But the truth of these, like that
of all other fundamental doctrines of Christianity,
can be satisfactorily demonstrated by a shorter and
simpler process. We have written, not with the
hope of silencing quibblers or of convincing the
prejudiced, but of satisfying sincere inquirers after
truth.  We have aimed to make the discussion short,
plain and convincing. How far we have succeeded
we must leave each reader to determine; but we can
say truly that, if the arguments employed are unsound, we are wholly unable to detect their unsoundness. We offer to our readers evidences on
which our own Christian hopes rest.
4 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
CHAPTER I.
STATEMENT OF TIE QUESTION.
WO  great questions have, in all ages,
1 excited the anxious inquiries of thinking
minds. The first is the question of the introduction of sin and suffering into our world;
the second is the question of the continuance
of evil, moral and natural. The number and
variety of the theories adopted on these subjects sufficiently indicate the difficulties attending the investigation, and show how little
satisfaction human reason alone can afford.
It is to the second of these two great questions that we propose now to devote a few
1 *                                  7 
8     IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
pages, relying mainly, in the investigations
on the inspired Word, though not neglecting
the aid of reason.
That in this world all do sin and suffer, we
know; but we inquire anxiously, What is to
be the fliture of man?  Will natural and moral
evil always continue, or will both terminate
either at death or at some future period?
Those who regard man as only a material
organism, whose conscious existence is terminated by death, of course have no difficulty
respecting his eternal future. That which
has no conscious existence can be neither
holy nor unholy) neither happy nor unhappy.
Amongst professing Christians some have
held that at the resurrection, though not before, all will be holy and happy. Such is the
creed of Universalists. Others think there
will be, at least to many, a period of suffering
after death, but that ultimately all will be
saved. Such is the belief of Restorationists.
But the great body of Christians of all ages
have believed that after death the righteous 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
will be for ever holy and happy; the wicked
for ever unholy and unhappy.
But we are now plausibly urged to abandon
the long-established creed of the Church of
Christ, and to embrace new doctrines respecting the nature of man and his fuiture. It is
contended that evil, natural and moral, must
come to an end; that in the government of
the infinitely perfect Jehovah, it cannot be
eternal. It is further contended that it will
terminate, not, as Restorationists and Universalists suppose, by all becoming holy and
happy, but by the annihilation of the'Wicked.
Those of the human race who die in unbelief, it is affirmed, will, as the just penalty of
their sin, return to their original elements,
and cease for ever to have a conscious existence. This doctrine has practical bearings
far more important than the mere question
of the final doom of the wicked, for   1. It involves the doctrine that the human
soul is mortal. One of the most plausible
advocates of the annihilation of the wicked
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10    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
says: "If it were true that immortality is
an essential attribute of man, then indeed it
must be admitted and maintained that a doctrine of endless life in ceaseless woe is a doctrine of the inspired Book." Other advocates of this doctrine contend earnestly that
the human soul is not immortal.
2. It involves the doctrine that the human
soul is mnaterial, and, consequently, that man
is nothing more than a material organism.
We  propose, in the progress of this diseussion, to prove that Annihilationists do teach
this doctrine. They cannot escape from it;
for if the soul is pure spirit, it is not subject
to decay or decomposition.
3. Logically it involves the denial of the
doctrine of man's free and accountable agency,
and, consequently, the denial of the possibility
of sin and holiness in man.  For matter, being governed by fixed laws, is incapable of
voluntary action, and, of course, incapable
of moral action. This is not an inference of
ours.  The two doctrines-materialism and 
IMMORTALITY OF THEI SOUL.
human accountability-have never, so far as
we know, been associated for any length of
time.
The history of the sensational philosophy,
which gained a wonderful popularity in France
just before the Revolution, warns us of the
inevitable tendencies of the doctrine of the
materiality of the soul. The leading philosophers of that period regarded man as a
mere material organism, but for a time they
shrank from carrying out the doctrine to its
logical results. Men, however, are far more
likely to carry out false principles, even to
the most revolting results, than to abandon
them and return to the truth. The time soon
came when the philosophers of France, having asserted the materiality of the soul, denied its free agency, and made virtue and vice
synonymous with pleasure and pain.'The
crowning piece,' says the learned Morell,'in
which the ultimate results of the whole system are concentrated, was presented to the
world by the Baron d'Holbach in his "Sys
ii 
12    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
teme de la Nature," a work in which materialism, fatalism and avowed atheism all combine to form a view of human nature which
even Voltaire pronounced to be illogical in
its deductions, absurd in its physics and abonminable in its morality.' "-Hist. of Mod. Philos., v. i., p. 161.
4. Logically it also involves the rejection
of a vicarious atonement.  The doctrine, inconsistent with itself, is, that man is mortal
by nature; that he would, therefore, die by
the course of nature, and death would be the
endurance of the entire penalty of his sin, if
we suppose him capable of sinning. If, after
this, God were pleased to raise him from his
dust to a new life, only the exertion of infinite power would be necessary; and there appears to be no reason why the incarnation
and death of Christ should be necessary in
order to the putting forth of such power.
We are not surprised, therefore, to find one
of the most plausible advocates of annihilationism rejecting and contending against the 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
doctrine.  He says: "In two different ways
is the actual pardon of sin denied-lst. Where
sin is said to be punished in the person of the
transgressor.  2d. Where it is said to be punished in the person of the Redeemer." Again:
"We remark, then, that it [the doctrine that
sin was punished in the Redeemer] seems to
be implied and properly to inhere in several
of the theodicies of eternal suffering." And
again: "That theory of the atonement which
makes the sufferings of Christ a satisfaction
to the divine justice is commonly found in
closest connection with the notion of sin as
infinite guilt." *  We  quote this language,
not now for the purpose of refuting it, but
simply to show that according to this writer
the two doctrines-the eternal punishment of
the wicked and the vicarious atonement of
Christ-stand or fall together.
5. If the preceding positions are true, it
requires  no long argument  to prove  that
the prevalence of the doctrines of annihila         * "Debt and Grace," pp. 392-397.
13 
14    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
tionists imust result in the  overthrow of
morals.  In  making  man  a mere material
organism and denying his free agency, they
furnish the very best apology for all wickedness; and in making the only penalty of
sin the privation of conscious existence, they
take away one of the most powerful motives
by which it is restrained. It may be said
that men shrink from annihilation more than
from eternal suffering. But, in the first place,
the zeal with which not a few in our day are
seeking to prove, scientifically, that man is
only a material and perishing organism, disproves the assertion. In the second place, it
is an instructive fact that it was when the
French infidels of the Revolution succeeded
in convincing the masses of the people that
death is an eternal sleep, that wickedness in
every form abounded, and France became a
pandemonium.
If, then, we have not misunderstood the
consequences which legitimately flow from
the doctrine of annihilationism; it is evidently 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
of sufficient importance to demand careful
investigation. Should we embrace this doctrine, we do not merely abandon one of the
doctrines of our present creed.  We  receive
a doctrine which will, if we are consistent,
compel us to reject other doctrines hitherto
regarded as fundamental to the Christian system; nor is it easy to say where we should
find a solid resting-place for our faith.
It is, then, apparent that the discussion of
the doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked
involves the inquiry into the nature as well
as the destiny of man. The following questions will cover the entire ground of the discussion, and will conduct us without confusion through the several steps necessary to a
safe and satisfactory conclusion:
I. What  do the Scriptures teach us respecting the nature of the soul?
II. How far do the known properties of
the soul confirm the obvious meaning of the
Scriptures respecting its nature?
III. What do the Scriptures teach us re
2
i 
16    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
specting the state of the soul between death
and the resurrection?
IV. What do the Scriptures teach respecting the eternal state of the wicked? 
CHAPTER II.
PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS.
EFORE entering upon the discussion of
these questions, there are some preliminary considerations which claim attention,
either as affording strong presumptive evidence against the annihilationist creed, or
as removing difficulties and preparing the
way for a satisfactory discussion of the whole
subject.
1. It is important to explain the sense in
which the word immortality is employed in
relation to the soul. In the New Testament
there are two words translated immortalityaphtharsia and  atianasia.  In  the highest
sense these words are applied to God. In
1 Tim. i. 7 we read: " Now unto the King
eternal immortal (aphtharto), invisible, the
17 
18    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
only wise God, be honor and glory for ever."
In 1 Tim. vi. 16 we read: "Who only hath
immortality (athlanasian), dwelling in light
which no man can approach unto."  Now, it
is manifest that immortality cannot belong to
any finite being in the sense in which it belongs to God. Of him only can it be said
that he "hath life in himself."  The immortality of a creature must of necessity be derived and dependent.
These words are used with reference to the
bodies of the saints as they will be raised
from the dead. In 1 Cor. xv. 53 it is written: "For this corruptible must put on incorruption (apAltharsian), and this mortal must
put on immortality (athianasian).'  Their bodies will be so changed and refined as to be no
more subject to decay and death. The word
aphtharsia is also employed to express the
happy immortality of the righteous.  Rom.
ii. 7. The English word immortality is constantly used to signify the incorruptibility of
the soul, in consequence of which it does not 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
die with the body, but will live for ever.
Webster defines it to be "the qnality of being immortal; exemption from death and
annihilation; life destined to endure without end." In this sense we use the word
when we affirm that the soul is immortal.
We do not mean that it possesses an immortality independent of its Creator, or that he
could not, if he chose, annihilate it, but that,
as he designed it to live for ever, he imparted
to it a nature suited to its destiny. Whether
the word immortality is applied to the soul in
this sense in the Scriptures or not, the doctrine which it expresses we hope to prove is
abundantly taught there.
2. That the Scriptures do teach this doctrine is mraade extremely probable-to use no
stronger language-by the fact that the church
of Christ in all ages and countries has so
understood them.  Hudson, one of the most
plausible advocates of the soul's mortality,
asserts that the early history of the opposite
doctrine "is evidently Platonic," and he adds:
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2 * 
20    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
"This view was first tolerated in the Christian church in the person of a remarkable
man in the fifth century, Synesius." But, in
the first place, the doctrine of Plato, as stated
by this author himself, is essentially different
from  that which  we  advocate.  He says:
"Plato himself regarded the soul as not only
immortal, but a divine essence, and, because
divine, it was pre-existent and eternal." But
we who contend for the doctrine of the soul's
immortality do not regard it as a divine essence, or as pre-existent, but as simply created
by God with a nature not subject to decay and
death. Our doctrine, therefore, is not of
Platonic origin. Besides, this same author
informs us that Justin Martyr, in his "Exhortation to the Greeks," mentions the doctrine "of the soul's immortality" among the
truths "held in common by the philosophers
and the Christians." *  Now, Justin Martyr
lived in the second century of the Christian
era, and no man had better opportunities of
* "Debt and Grace," p. 313. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
knowing the faith of Christians at that period.
It cannot be true, then, that the doctrine of
the soul's immortality was first tolerated in
the Christian church in the ffth century.
The truth is, that the doctrines of the soul's
mortality  and  of the annihilation  of the
wicked never gained a footing in the primitive church.
We  have a very important testimony respecting the belief of the church in all its
branches, for several centuries past, which
relieves us from the necessity of adducing
other proofs. One of the ablest annihilationists says: "From the various schools of
ecclesiastical tuition a reply [i. e., to the question, Wh at 4s man.?] has come forth, the substance of which may be thus condeirsed:
'Man is an immortal being'-mortal as to
his body, but immortal in his soul." And
after stating the doctrine of ithe fiuture destiny of the wicked, he says: "From the press
and from the pulpit the reply has for centuties gone forth.  In every country in Chris
21 
22    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
tendom, and in every city and hamlet, this
teaching is heard." * We are far from claiming infallibility for the church in her interpretations of the Scriptures, but we are as far
from regarding it as even remotely probable
that on a subject of so great importance-a
subject of which, confessedly, the Scriptures
treat abundantly and plainly-the whole
church has been given up for centuries to believe a lie. We are constrained to ask, What
strange and all-pervading delusion has come
over the minds of all the students of God's
word-embracing great multitudes of the
emininently wise and good-that for centuries
past they should have so grossly misinterpreted its plain language, all, too, understanding it in the same way? Within these
centuries the Scriptures have been in the
hands of the people, and have been studied
as never before by learned laymen-independent thinkers-as well as by learned mninisters, and during no preceding period have
* "Question of Ages," p. 381. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
the minds of good men been so free from the
perverting influence of false philosophy. The
Reformation expelled Plato and Aristotle from
the church, but the doctrine of the soul's immortality remained. The Baconian philosophy gave a new direction to philosophical inquiry, but still this doctrine has held its place
in the creed of almost the whole of Christendom. How shall we account for this if the
doctrine is false and injurious? Is it more
probable that the whole church should have
so long and so strangely erred, or that the
few men who now assail the long-established
faith have themselves misinterpreted the inspired record? We leave the candid reader
to answer.  -But surely we are justified in demanding of those who make pretensions so
extraordinary, arguments the most conclusive,
before we change our faith.
3. On close inspection we discover in the
creed we are invited to embrace some inconsistencies which shake our confidence in it.
The truth is always consistent with itself, and
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24    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
the human understanding refuses to receive
contradictions as inspired truths.
1st. The annihilationist creed ascribes the
same qualities to two substances essentially
different in their nature. Annihilationists
hold that the soul is a material substance,
and that God is a spirit, and so are angels;
and yet they ascribe the same qualities or
properties to these two essentially different
substances.  We  may be charged with misrepresentation when we charge them with
holding that the soul is matter. Let us,
therefore, adduce the evidence upon which
the statement is founded. Hudson, shrinking
from the avowal of gross materialism, yet admits "the prevalence of a materialist philosophy which has frequently attended the doctrine we (annihilationists) maintain;" and he
insists, in the behalf of pious materialists,
"that speculative materialism is not to be for
itself condemned." *  Now, between the doctrine that the soul is spirit, and the doctrine
* "Debt and Grace," pp. 243, 246. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
that the soul is matter, there is fundamental
difference. The one view or the other is a
very grave error. Why, then, we may reasonably inquire, has a materialist philosophy
so frequently attended the doctrine of annihilationism, unless there is some decided affinity
between the two? Evidently the advocates
of this doctrine have felt that the spiritual
nature of the soul could never be made to
harmonize with it. And why, we may further
ask, is not speculative materialism to be for
itself condemned if it be an error?  Is not
all error, especially on a subject so vital, injurious? But our author himself, whilst apparently contending that the soul is "a spiritual substance," adopts a theory which is
substantially and really materialistic. His
theory is that "which regards the soul as an
entity, not destroyed by the death of the body,
however dependent it may be on an embodiment for the purposes of active existence." *
No materialist imagines that death destroys
* "Debt and Grace," p. 250.
25 
26.IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
either body or soul, as an entity. If conscious existence is destroyed, it avails nothing
to say that as an entity the soul still exists.
If it does not exist as an intelligent, active
being, it is virtually destroyed. To speak of
its condition as " a repose "-" not a state of
thinking, perhaps, on the other hand, not of
unconsciousness, but of momentary all-consciousness" *-is to use words without meaning.  It is the attempt to imagine a state unknown alike to philosophy and to the Scriptures.
Another writer of the same school, shrinking from the avowal of materialism, admits
that the soul is a substance, yet denies that it
is either matter or spirit. In one place he
speaks of "the vital, vigorous substance, the
immaterial soul of man," as created by God.
In another place, replying to the argument
that the soul is immaterial, and therefore immortal, he says. "The argument is invalid
and unreasonable and its only supposable
*"Debt and Grace" p. 261. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
force arises fromn a silent assuinml)tion that because the soul of man is not matter, therefore
it is spirit. But this assumption is not warranted." * Now, since the soul is confessedly
a substance, it must be either matter or spirit,
unless there is a third substance different in
nature from both of these. There is no third
substance known to us, and, therefore, if the
soul is not spirit, we must regard it as matter.
And notwithstanding the occasional use of
language which might have another meaning,
this is evidently the view of oiur author, for
he contends that man is wholly of earthly
origin. The sentence pronounced upon Adam
he expounds thus: "n I  the sweat of thy face
shalt THIOU -eat bread, till THOU return into
the earth; for out of it (MIIENXHA-out of
that sort of origin) wast THOiU taken: for
dust (GATI-PHIAR elemental atoms) THOU art,
and unto dust (elemental atoms) shalt THOU return." He adds by way of comment: " In this
sentence pronounced. on the- man, the fact of
* "Quest. of Ages,"' pp. 5, 27.
3
27 
28    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL,
his personal origin out of the earth is embodied." *  Now, dust is matter; and he who contends that man, as a person, is formed of dust,
and at death returns to dust, is a materialist.
Another writer of the same creed reasons
about the immateriality of the soul thus:
"WVhere is the proof that the soul is immaterial?  It certainly is not drawn  from
nature, for all nature is material; it is not
drawn from reason, for reason cannot comprehend the existence of immateriality; it
cannot be drawn from revelation, for that
expressly declares that man is dust and the
mind carnal."t Can there be grosser materialism or more absurd reasoning than this?
Yet the writer, as if, under the silent protest
of his own soul, shrinking from his own doctrine, says: "We do not mean to be understood that the mind is material, but we do
claim that all vital and mental phenomena
result from material causes." Then take
* "Quest. of Ages," p. 34.
t "Mortal or Immortal," p. 25. 
IMMIORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
away the material causes, and all vital and
mental phenomena must cease. Where, then,
is the soul, and what is it?  He  has explained his meaning in replying to the
argument for the immateriality of the soul
founded in Eccles. xii. 7. The word translated spirit, he contends, means breath, and
he reasons thus: "Is, then, this breath of life
the spirit which God has given to man?  We
have no record of any other. But this breath
of life, as we have seen, is common to all
living things," * etc. The soul of man, then,
is only his breath, and just such souls have
all living things!  There can be no grosser
materialism than this.
Now, according to the creed of these
writers, God is a spirit, and the soul of man
is matte?. What are the properties of spirit
as they appear in the divine nature? They
are intelligence, voluntary agency and moral
character. God is an infinitely intelligent
Being, he is infinitely free in his choices
*' Mortal or Immortal," p. 40.
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30    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
and acts, and he is infinitely holy. These
are the distinguishing properties of spirit.
But the soul of man, though finite, is an
intelligent being, free in its choices and acts,
and possesses moral character. Possessing,
therefore, the distinguishing properties of
spirit, it is spirit. There is no greater albsurdity than to ascribe the same properties
to two substances essentially different in nature.  This absurdity is chargeable upon the
doctrine we are controverting. The ancient
Sadducees, who denied the immortality of
the soul, were consistent enough to deny the
existence of. spirits. "For the Sadducees say
that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor
spirit." *  But the annihilationists are inconsistent enough to maintain the materiality and
mortality of the soul, and yet to admit the
existence of spirits.
2d. The creed of the annihilationists is absurd and contradictory, because, according to
it, the righteous, though they are justified,
* Acts xxiii. 8. 
IMMIORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
suffer the full penalty of sin once, the wicked,
twice. They insist with great earnestness that
"the revealed penalty of humai  sin, and, in
this, the revealed destiny of man, as a sinner,
is found in the sentence pronounced upon
Adam," which, as interpreted by one of thlem,
means that man was formed of the cltstelemental atoms-and is to return to dust
or elemental atoms.  "The first man," says
he, "is out of the earth, and the final destiny
of man, as man and a sinner, is to return
unto the earth, and to become as though he
had not been.  The destiny of man, as denounced of God in the garden of Eden, is
continuously shown in the concurrent teaching of the inspired Book."* Now, if it be
true that the soul is material and dies with
the body, every human being does suffer this
entire penalty at death, for then the entire
person returns to dust or elemental atomns.
It is true that the writer just quoted attempts to escape the difficulty by saying that,
* "Quest. of Ages," pp. 34, 135.
31
3S 
32    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
since Jesus died anld rose again, "the saints
do not in reality die, but, before that, the
saints died and were held captive by death."*
But this assertion, if it were true, does not
remove the difficulty; for it would still be
true  that the saints who  died  before  the
death and resurrection of Christ did suffer
the full penalty of sin; for their souls, as we
are told, were "held by the chords of death
insensible and inert."  But other annihilationists do not accept this theory, that since
the resurrection of Christ the saints do not
die.  One of them  states his belief thus:
"That mian has no inherent iimmortal principle in his nature. That consequently no
part of ihim remains in a separate conscious
state in death, but that the whiole man lies
in unconsciousness till called to new life )by
the resurrection." t  Accordingly, he labors to
prove that all those passages which seem to
teach that the saints, between the time of
* Quest. of Ages," p. 107..
t Preface to " Mortal or Immortal." 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
their death and that of the resurrection, enjoy a happy existence, mean something else.
Hudson reasons in the same way.
The penalty of sin, then, according to annihilationists, is death-that is, the return of
man, soul and body, to the earth from which
hle was taken. If this is the penalty, every
one who dies suffers it. But the saints die
and return to dust. Therefore the saints endure the full penalty of sin. This conclusion
is not affected by the fact, if it were true, that
new beings will, at some distant period, be
created out of the same "elemental atoms,"
for in no possible sense could they be the
same persons who died. And if this were
possible, still it would be true that they did
suffer the whole penalty when they returned
to dust. Hudson sees and vainly attempts
to escape  the difficulty respecting identity.
He says: "This view [i. e., that the soul dies
with the body] makes the identity of man's
present and future being inexplicable, if not
impossible."  He would  meet the'difficulty
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34    IMMORTALITY OF THIE SOUL.
by the theory, already noticed, that the soul
continues  as "an  entity," though without
active existence. His view of the penalty,
consequently, is stated thus:  "In the doctrine of death which we maintain, this view
of man's nature would lead us to say that
the first and second death are the first and
second installments of the debt incurred by
sin, the execution of the sentence being
divided in such sort that those who escape
the second death are in the New Testament
spoken of not as properly dead, but as fallen
asleep."* But, in the first place, this view
is absurd.  The soul is either matter or spirit.
If it is matter, death destroys it as completely
as it destroys the body. If it is spirit, death
simply dissolves the tie that binds soul and
body together, and it passes into another
state of conscious existence.  A  spirit must
possess the properties of spirit, and therefore must be active, thinking, feeling, acting.
To talk of the disembodied soul as "lost in
* "Debt and Grace," pp. 247, 250. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
an intuition of its past history, with no process of thinking and with no note of time,"
is to talk nonsense.* Neither philosophy nor
revelation knows anything of such a state.
Secondly, If we were to admit the truth
of these wild conjectures, and that the penalty
of sin is divided into "two installments,"
still, the righteous, as well as the wicked,
would pay the first installment. Now, the
Scriptures teach us that believers in Christ
are fillly justified, and that to them "there is
no condemnation." t They suffer no part of
the penalty of sin. They are, indeed, subject to natural death, but in the case of
believers the plan of redemption has converted death into a rich blessing, since it
introduces them into the blissful presence of
God.  Paul, therefore, in enumerating  the
believer's blessings, includes death among
them. 1 But according to the doctrine of
annihilationists, death deprives the righteous,
* "Debt and Grace," p. 261. t Romn. viii. 1.
1 Cor. iii. 22.
35 
36    IMIMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
as well as the wicked, of conscious existence;
it converts them into "elemental atoms," or
dust. They, therefore, suffer just what was
denounced against Adam as the penalty of
sin. So that we have, in the case of the
righteous, the same persons fully justified,
yet enduring the penalty of sin. This is
contradiction.
But as for the wicked, they endure the
penalty twice, which is absurd, and would be
unjust. For the advocates of annihilation
tell us that after having died once-having
returned to dust-they are to be raised from
the dead that they may again be'annihilated,
or die a second time! Hudson saw the difficulty, and it had its influence in inducing
him to adopt the absurd theory of the soul's
continued existence as "an entity."  Says
he, "If the human soul or spirit is not an
immaterial substance, but perishes with the
body, then the wicked will wholly die twice,
and the penalty of the law will appear to
be executed a second time.  This difficulty,v 
IMMORTALITY OF THIE SOUL.
with another to be named hereafter, has led
many to deny that the'resurrection of the
unjust' signifies their being made alive."
To  such absurdities  are men  driven  who
abandon the obvious teachings of God's
word.*
Another advocate of annihilation seeks to
remove this difficulty. "Adam," he says,
"has suffered the penalty of his first transgression, death. Death temporal-or rather,
we should say, death temporary-is entailed
in consequence upon all our race. And had
not the plan of salvation immediately supervened upon the fall, this would have been
the end of Adam  and his posterity, for we
have already seen that death is a state of
non-existence, and the only avenue there is
from that land of dark unconsciousness back
to life is through the resurrection, which is
effected by Christ." But we are to answer,
he tells us, "for our personal acts and transgressions." For this purpose we are all to
D "Debt and Grace," p. 247.
37 
38   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
have a future life. And if, then, there are
found remaining against us sins unrepented
of and unforgiven, what will be our sentence?  Answer: The same fearful sentence
which has everywhere, from first to last, been
pronounced against sin, " The soul that sinneth  it shall  die."*   But  how  is this?
These writers do most earnestly insist that
the penalty of sin is death-that is, the return
of man, body and soul, to dust.  If this is
the penalty of sin, thenr, when a mnan dies he
fully endures the penalty due to all his sin.
Hlow is it, then, that he is to be created over
again, that he may again endure the same
sentence? It is useless to tell us that the
first death is entaiked, since we are assured
that it is the precise penalty of sin. There
is no escape from the conclusion that, according to the annihilationist creed, the wicked
are to suffer the penalty of the law twice.
We need no stronger evidence that it is
untrue.
* "AMortal or Immortal," pp. 104, 105. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
But let us look at this point again. As
already shown, these writers tell us that the
penalty of sin is death; and yet some of themn
seem to teach that death or annihilation is a
merciful arrangement, not an infliction of the
penalty. One of them, giving his creed, states
the matter thus: "That the wicked will be
punished in a future state, that they will be
rewarded every man according to his deeds,
but that they will receive this punishment
at the hands of a God whose mercy is coequal with his justice, and who will suffer
them to go back to their original elements
and cease from existence, as entitled to no
name nor place in all the universe of God." *
Now, according to the view here given, the
penalty of sin is to be endured in the future
state, and after the wicked shall have fully
endured that penalty, God, who is as merciful as he is just, will permit them to become
extinct. Annihilation, therefore, is the mercifuil termination of their sufferings, not the
* Pref. to "Mortal or Immortal."
4
39 
40    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
punishment of their sins. Now, both of these
views cannot be true. If the annihilation of
the wicked is "the fearful sentence which has
everywhere, from first to last, been pronounced
against sin," it cannot be a merciful permission to the wicked to return to the original
elements out of which they were formed.
But, after all, can it be true that death or
annihilation is, in any sense, the penalty of
sin? Let us examine. In the first place,
we are assured that man was created mortal,
but had the offer of immortality on certain
conditions. "Though not immortal, he was
capable of living to perpetuity, and this constitutional life, possessed as the gift of his
Creator; he held unsubject to death on the
sole condition of non-disobedience to the
prohibitory command which his Creator had
imposed." * Man, then, was mortal, but on
certain conditions he might have lived for
ever. He chose not to comply with those
conditions, and consequently, being mortal, he
* "Quest. of Ages," p. 32. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
must perish, in the natural course of things.
The gospel makes to him another offer of
immortality on other conditions. If he declines the offer, being mortal, he dies. "The
gospel offers him everything, and inviteswith all the earnestness of divine love it
urges-his acceptance. But it obtrudes upon
him nothing." * Now, according to this view,
death is not a penalty at all.  Man  was
mortal. He had the offer of immortality,
but did not accept. He therefore continued
to be mortal, and must die without the necessity of any divine infliction. The gospel,
again, offers immortality.  Some accept and
will live for ever. Others either never hear
the offer or decline it, and therefore, being
mortal, they die, in the course of nature.
If they should be newly created or raised
from the dead, they must be raised mortal
or immortal. If they are raised mortal, they
will again die, in course of nature. If immortal, they will not be annihilated. Anni            * "Debt and Grace," p. 7.
41 
42    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
hilation, therefore, instead of being the infliction of, a "fearful sentence," must be a mere
natural result. True, death might be hastened by divine judgments, but in this world
the wicked often live as long as or longer
than the righteous. The truth is, this creed
is a bundle of contradictions and absurdities.
The different parts of it cannot be reconciled
with each other. It rests on neither a philo
sophical nor a scriptural foundation. It cannot be true.
4. The modes of defending their creed
adopted by annihilationists can lead only to error. They are modes by which any doctrine
of the Scriptures might be successfully assailed, or any error successfully defended. We
now call attention to two of their peculiarities.
1st. They make a great deal out of the fact
that certain terms and phrases now employed
by believers in the soul's immortality are not
found in the Scriptures. One of them states
the number of times the words translated
soul and spirit are found in the Bible, and 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
glories in "the stupendous fact" that in no
instance is it called an immortal or a deathless
soul.
The whole force of this vaunted argument
consists in the fact that the words immortal
and deathless are not found in the Bible connected with the words soul and spirit. Now,
suppose we should urge, as a triumphant
refutation of the doctrine of the mortality of
the soul, another "stupendous fact" which this
dashing writer seems to have overlooked, viz.:
that in all those hundreds of instances in
which the words soul and spirit occur, the
soul is never once denominated mortal, nor
the spirit called dying. If the absence of the
words immortal and deathless proves that the
soul is not immortal, does not the absence of
the words mortal and dying prove as clearly
that it is not mortal? This mode of arguing
would prove that the soul is neither mortal
nor immortal.  A wise man never uses arguments against the creed of others which are
fatal to his own.
4*
43 
44    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
But if, as this writer affirms, the silence
of the Scriptures is significant, may not its
meaning be the reverse of what he supposes?
It is a fact that, in the days of Christ and
his apostles, the doctrine of the immortality
of the soul prevailed amongst the Jews, and
also amongst the Gentiles. The Sadducees
denied it, but the Pharisees, who were much
more numerous, held it. If, then, this doctrine is erroneous and injurious, should we
not expect to find, in some of the numerous
instances in which the words soul and spirit
occur in the New Testament, the soul denominated mortal and the spirit dying? Would
they allow such an error, so prevalent, to go
unrebuked? If, then, this silence is significant, it bears hardly on the doctrine of the
annihilationists.
But all such reasoning is shallow and deceptive. It confounds two totally different
things, viz.: the silence of the Scriptures in
relation to the doctrine of the soul's immortality, and the absence from' the Scriptures 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
of certain words and phrases now employed
to express this doctrine. Why may it not be
taught by means of other words and phrases?
Suppose the inspired account of the creation
of man should prove that his soul is spirit,
not matter. Suppose the Scriptures should
teach that at death the soul passes into another state of conscious existence, that the
righteous are happy in the presence of God,
the wicked unhappy in outer darkness. Suppose we learn from the inspired volume that
after the resurrection the wicked will suffer
for ever.  Would  not the doctrine of the
immortality of the soul be as clearly taught
in these ways as if the words immortal and
deathless were used?  Who  does not know
that in  all ages  theological  writers  have
adopted words and phrases to express Scripture truths, which words and phrases are not
in the Scriptures? The word trinity, the
phrases total depravity, perseverance of the
saints, and the like, are not found in the
Scriptures; but does it follow that the doc
45 
46    IMMfORTALITY OP THE SOUL.
trines thus expressed are not there? The
annihilationists themselves make free use of
terms which are not scriptural. The advocates of truth never find it necessary to resort
to this shallow mode of argumentation.
2d. Whilst asserting with great positiveness
the meaning of those passages of Scripture
which, as they think, favor their views, the
annihilationists labor to make the meaning
of those passages which teach the opposite
doctrines, perfectly doubtful.  For  example,
the sentence pronounced on Adam, it is very
positively asserted, teaches that the whole
man, body and soul, dies. But when Solomon, speaking of death, says, "Then shall
the dust return to the earth as it was, and
the spirit shall return unto God who gave
it," they labor only to render the meaning
of his language perfectly doubtful.  One of
them replies to the argument from this passage thus: "This argument is based on the
assumption that the word translated'spirit'
in the above passage is used as'a substantive 
IMMORTALITY OF THiE SOUL.
noun, and means the soul of man.   But this
is not self-evident, and may not be the meaning at all. The original word, RUAH, may
possibly mean the breath of man, as in Gen.
vi. 17 and several other places. We do not
say that, in this instance, it means the breath.
It may be used to signify the motion of the
soul in passing away, and passing into the
custody of God.... The doctrine deducible
from the text may be this." * This passage
is one of the most important in the Bible,
as explaining the sentence pronounced upon
man after the fall.  This very critical writer
is entirely positive in giving to the language
of that sentence an interpretation widely different from that of all respectable critics and
commentators; but when he comes to an inspired explanation of it, he can only discover
that it may mean this, or it may mean that,
and the doctrine it teaches may be so and so!
What can such criticism do  but mislead?
The language of Solomon has a meaning, and
* "Quest. of Ages," p. 18.
47 
IMMORTALITY OF TIIE SOUL.
it is the business of those who undertake to
expound it, to ascertain what it does mean,
not what it may mean.
Again, when our Lord bade his disciples
"fear him which is able to destroy both soul
and body in hell," the advocates of annihilation are positive as to his meaning: the word
destroy of course means annihilate. But when
he says to the penitent thief, "Verily I say
unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in
Paradise," they tell us his language may
mean either of several things. One author
says: "The meaning may be, I say unto
thee, Even this day, when it all seems so
unlikely, thou shalt be with me in Paradise,
when I enter my kingdom, or the term Paradise may denote the state of the saints in the
underworld." * Another writer of the same
creed proposes three interpretations of our
Lord's language, and gravely says: "There
is a degree of plausibility in each. The reader
can adopt that which seems to him most satis           * "Debt and Grace," p. 257.
48 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
factory, but if he should have the curiosity
to inquire which the writer was inclined to
regard as the truthful one, he would be told
the first." * In connection with this passage,
the writer makes a truly characteristic remark. He says: "We would just as soon
suggest several explanations of the same scriptulre as we would several methods of solving
the satne problem, provided they all equally
get the answer." t Precisely so. A certain
"answer" is desired, and the question is, not
what the language of particular texts really
means, but how they may be interpreted so
as to get the desired answer!
Ag,ain, in noticing the argument from 2
Cor. v. 8 and Phil. i. 21-23, Hudson says:
"The phrase,'to be absent from the body,'
may therefore denote, not the happiness of
a disembodied state, but a release from the
suffering and dying body, either to'sleep inll
Jesus,' or to be present with Christ in the
glorified body of the resurrection.... When
* "Mortal or Immortal," p. 57.    t Ibid., p. 51.
49 
5)0  IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
he then adds,'To live is Christ, and to die is
gain,' hle may signify either the gain to the
cause of Christ by the martyrdom which in
his prison he awaited, or his own greater
reward, as a martyr, in the resurrection....
And as in the other passage, so here, the
departure to be with Christ may denote either
the repose of the saints in the bosom of Christ,
or the full union with him in the resurrection
which Paul so earnestly desires."*
These writers seem perfectly satisfied when
they have said, respecting any passage of
Scripture that stands in their way, that it
may mean something widely different from
the meaning almost universally attributed to
it.  This is the abuse of criticism.   There
is no important word that has not several
meanings; and therefore there are few texts
of Scripture to which several different interpretations may not be plausibly given.  It is
the business of interpreters, not to try to
evade the plain meaning of Scripture language
* "Debt and Grace," p.'256. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
by saying, it may mean something different,
but to ascertain what it does in fact mean.
Whilst there are passages that are obscure,
concerning the meaning of which there may
be doubt, those just noticed are not of this
class. The language is plain, and interpreters are very generally agreed respecting the
true interpretation of them. Let us take not
a part, but all that Scriptures say of the soul
of man and his destiny, and let it be our
aim to ascertain the true meaning of each
class of texts, and the doctrine taught by the
whole, not to discover what interpretation
may be forced upon them. Thus, and only
thus, can we hope to arrive at the truth.
t
51 
CHAPTER III.
THE CREATION OF MAN.
E are now prepared to inquire, To what
conclusion does the inspired account of
the creation of man conduct us respecting the
nature of the soul?  The  account, though
very brief, does not leave us in the dark on
this point.
In the first place, we notice a very striking
difference between the history of the creation
of the different orders of animals and that
of-the creation of man. Concerning certain
classes of animals, God said, "Let the waters
bring forth abundantly the moving creature
that hath life." Concerning other classes,
he said, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind." The language
52 
IMMORTALITY OF TIEE SOUL.
is as if they were exclusively of earthly
origin and nature. But when man was to
be created, neither the waters nor the earth
were commanded to produce him. There
was counsel in heaven, and God said, "Let
us make man."  "And the Lord God formed
man of the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life, and man
became a living soul."  Whatever criticisms
may be resorted to respecting the phrases,
"breath of life," and "living soul," it is certain, from the account of the creation of man,
that he is a being of very far nobler nature
and higher destiny than the various orders
of animals.
But, secondly, it is the glory of man that
he was created in the inage of God.  "And
God said, Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness. So God created man in
his own image, in the image of God created
he him, male and female created he them."
Here arises one of the most important inquiries in the whole discussion, viz'.: what is
53 
54    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
the image and likeness of God in which man
was created?
The image was corporeal, says one annihilationist writer. It is almost incredible
that any man with the Bible in his hand
should embrace an error so gross and so impious.   But hear his language: "But it is
urged that man cannot be in the image of
God in respect to bodily form, for God is
without form, body or parts. A grand mistake, reader, and one that has not been without its weight in giving rise to the interpretation of Gen. i. 26, already refuted."  And
after making what he regards as an argument,
he concludes thus: "And there is no definition given to the word (image) when applied to a material object like man, which
will allow us to refer it to anything else but
the outward shape, the physical contour. We
hence conclude that Gen. i. 27 simply informs us that in this respect man resembled
his Maker."* It cannot be necessary, in this
* "Mortal or Immortal," pp.' 10-12, 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
day, and in this country, to expose an error so
exceedingly gross.   Paul tells us that when
men became fools they "changed the glory
of the incorruptible God into an image made
like to corruptible man;" and therefore God
abandoned them.* We need no better evidence of the truth of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul than the fact, if it be
a fact, that the opposite doctrine canll be sustained only by degrading the Creator of all.
Another writer of the same class says
"We know that the image of God, in which
man was made, was not corporeal, for GOD
Is SPIRIT."  But he asks, "Why should it
be questioned that the image of God, in
which man was made, was governmental, and
only governmental? The delegation of dominion is the predominant thought in the
passage," t etc. We answer:
1. To make the image merely governmental is inconsistent with the inspired account.
It is certain that "the delegation of do    *Rom. i. 22, 23.   t "Quest. of Ages," p. 14.
5 *
55 
56    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
minion"  over inferior creatures could  not
take place till after man was created, but it
is expressly declared that God created man
in his image.  It was in the act of creation,
not in the after act of delegating dominion,
that the image of God was imparted. The
image, therefore, belongs to the soul, and does
not consist in any extraneous thing.   The
fact that man bore the image of God was
the reason why he had authority over the
animal creation, but the image is one thing,
the authority, another.
In the first Epistle to the Corinthians the
apostle speaks of the man, in contrast with
the woman, as "the image and glory of God,"
and this language is understood to refer to
delegated authority.* But this is not inconsistent with the common interpretation of the
passage under consideration; for it has been
well remarked, " When, in Gen. i. 26, 27, it
is said, God created man in his own image,
the reference is as much to woman as to man,
*1 Cor. xi. 7. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
for it is immediately added,'Male and female
created he them.' *
2. The Scriptures abundantly confirm the
obvious meaning of the inspired account of
man's creation, that the image of God belongs to the soul itself, and they leave no
room to doubt in what that image consists.
One of the annihilationist authors gives us
some curious criticisms on the original HIebrew.  The word translated likeness, he informs us, "is very general in its meaning,
implying some kind of equivalence, either in
the way of reality or of representation;" and
with this statement he dismisses the word,
leaving his readers to discover, if they can,
what kind of "equivalence" it implies in the
passage he is interpreting. The word translated image, he says, "signifies an image or
representation that may be compared, but
ze,st also be contrasted, with the object which
it is designed to represent." HIe refers us to
Ezek. xvi. 17 and Ps. xxxix. 6, and suc             * Dr, Hodge, in Loco.
57 
58    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
ceeds in reaching the conclusion that image
means a shadow-that "man at first was only
the image or shadow of God"-"the life
of man was but the shadow of the immortality of God." *
There can be no greater abuse of the principles of language than such criticism as
this.  The words translated "likeness" and
"image,"  like all other important words,
have very different meanings when applied
to different things. The question before us
is this: What do these words mean when
used to express the likeness of one intelligent
being to another? And the only way to
obtain a satisfactory answer to this question
is to examinie other passages in which these
words are used to express such likeness. Now,
in neither of the passages referred to by this
writer is the word translated image used for
such purpose.  The subjects to which it relates are wholly different; and it would be as
wise to quote a passage that speaks of the
* "Quest. of Ages," pp. 13, 14. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
head of a nail, in order to ascertain the meaning of the word head as applied to a man, as
to refer to those passages to determine what
is the image of God in which man was created.
Both the words in question are found in
Gen. v. 3, where it is said, Adam  "begat a
son in his own likeness, after his image."
Is the word likeness here "very general in its
meaning, implying some kind of equivalence"?
Does the word image here signify "a representation that may be compared, but must
also be contrasted, with the object it is designed to represent"?  Was Seth merely the
shadow of his father?  The unlearned reader
is at no loss to understand the meaning of
these words as here used; and the obvious
meaning here will help us to explain their
meaning in the passage we are examining.
In the Septuagint the Hebrew word for
image is translated by the Greek word eikon,
and this last word is repeatedly used in the
New Testament to express the image of God.
B9 
60    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
In Col. i. 15, Jesus Christ is said to be "the
image of the invisible God." It will scarcely
be pretended that here the word imnage means
shadow, and must be contrasted, as well as
compared, with that which it represents. Evidently it is used in its highest sense, signifying that Jesus Christ is "the brightness of
his Father's glory, and the express image of
his person "-that he possesses the same nature and perfections.
In Col. iii. 10 believers are said to have
"put on the new man, which is renewed in
knowledge after the image of Him that created him." The image of God into which
believers are renewed consists in knowledge
-not -in mere intellectual knowledge, but
true wisdom. Originally, God not only created man an intelligent being, but of such
moral nature that he was capable of knowing, loving and serving him.  Depravitythe result of the fall of man-has blinded
and perverted his intellect, so that "the natural man receiveth not the'things of the 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
Spirit of God, neither can he know them."
The renewing influence of the Holy Spirit,
removing the cause of blindness, enlightens
the soul. With open or unveiled face it beholds the glory of God.   Man  was created
in the image of God. Hie is now, by the
Holy Spirit, created anew in the same image,
The renewed image consists in that knowledge
which a pure mind only can possess. The
original image, then, must have been the
same.
Again, believers, as Paul teaches, were
"predestinated to be conformed to the image
of his Son,"* and this is explained when the
same apostle says, they were chosen before
the foundation of the world, that they should
be "holy and without blame before him in
love."t They bear the image of Christ, and
consequently the image of God, as they become holy.  The image, therefore, consists
in holiness. And this is in accordance with
thle language of the same apostle, when he
* Rom. viii. 29.    t Eph. i. 4.
61 
62    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
says of believers: "But we all, with open
face beholding as in a glass the glory of the
Lord, are changed into the same image from
glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the
Lord."* The same truth is taught by Solomon when he says: "Lo, this only have I
found, that God hath made man upright." t
The inspired account of the creation of
man, then, conducts us to the undoubting
conclusion that his soul is spirit, not matter.
God is spirit, and it is absurd to say that
matter, however refined or organized, can bear
the image of spirit, especially the intellectual
and moral image of spirit.  God is an infinite
spirit: he made man a finite spirit. He is an
infinitely intelligent spirit: he made man a
finitely intelligent spirit. He is infinitely
and immutably holy: he made man finitely
and mutably holy.  Now, to say that a material organism can have the intellectual and
moral image of the infinite spirit, is to say
that two substances of radically different na       * 2 Cor. iii. 18.    t iecl. vii 29. 
IIMORTALITY OF TIE SOUL.
tures mnay possess the same properties or
qualities, which is absurd.
We have precisely the same evidence that
the soul of man is spirit as that God is
spirit.  For, in the first place, the same words
in Hebrew and Greek are used with reference to both, viz.: RUAH and PNEUMA.  lThe
Psalmist says: "Thout sendest forth thy spirit,
they are created." The Hebrew word for
spirit is rsah; the Greek, as in the Septuagint, is pneuma.  Speaking of the death of
man, Solomon says: "The spirit returns to
God who gave it." Here the same Hebrew
and Greek words are used as in the preceding passage.  It would be easy to give all
indefinite number of similar examples.  Paul
brings the two together thus: "For what
man knoweth the things of a man, save the
spirit (pneumta) of man  which is in him?
Even so the things of God knowetli no man,
butt the spirit (pnevma) of God." *
In the second place,. God is represented as,
* 1 Cor. ii. 11.
6
63 
64    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
in a peculiar sense, the Father or Creator iof
the spirits of men.  At death the dust returns to the earth as it was, "and the spirit
shall return unto God who gave it." God is
the Creator of the bodies of men, but he
gives their spirits in a sense in which he
does not give their bodies. He "stretcheth
forth the heavens and layeth the foundation
of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man
within him." * The spirit is not generated,
zas is the body, but God forms it in man. Accordingly, the apostle reasons thus: " Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which
corrected us, and we gave them reverence:
shall we not much rather be in subjection
to the Father of spirits and live?" t  On this
passage McNight remarks: "By distinguishing between the fathers of our flesh and the
Father of our spirits, the apostle teaches us
that we derive only our flesh from our parents,
but our spirit from God."   " The rational
soul," says Owen,  " which  is immediately
* Zech. xii. 1.         t lieb. xii. 9. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
created and infused, having no other father
but God himself." "Father of our spirits,"
says Doddridge, "by whom  that noble part
of our nature was produced, in the production of which our earthly parents had no
share."
3. In the third place, as already remarked,
the soul possesses the same properties by
which God is proved to be spirit, though
it is finite.  God is an intelligent Being, a
voluntary Agent, and possesses moral character, therefore he is spirit. The soul possesses the same properties, therefore it is
spirit.
But how does all this prove the immortality of the soul?  It reveals the nature of
the soul, and thus justifies, and even demands,
the conclusion that it is immortal. If the
soul were, like the body, material, the probability would seem to be that it dies when
the body dies. But it is spirit-a substance
of a radically different nature.  Therefore the
causes which produce the death of the ma
65 
66    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
terial nature cannot affect the death of the
spiritual nature. The soul is spirit, and,
therefore, it is not, like the body, sub)ject to
decay and death. It is in the iinmage of God,
and therefore will not die. That the annihilationists see the force of this argument is
evident from their efforts to prove that the
image of God does not belong to the soul.
And here it may be worth while to notice
their peculiar reasonings. The image of God,
in which man was created, says one of them,
was not "intellectual, for God is omniscient."
That is to say, a finite intelligence cannot be
in the image or likeness of the infinite intelligence. This is absurd, and it flatly contradicts-Paul, who teaches that believers are
renewed in knowledge after the image of Him
who created man. The same writer says, the
image was not "moral, for God  is holy, and
the attribute or characteristic of holiness presumes the possession of the knowledge of
good and evil, and this knowledge man did
not possess when he was made, and it was 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
this that he was forbidden to obtain." *
Strange sentiments, these! Man, we are told,
could not be holy without the knowledge of
good and evil, and this knowledge he was
forbidden to obtain. Of course, then, he was
forbidden to be holy, and would have sinned
if he had become holy!  Can anything be
more absurd?  It is not true that holiness
presumes the possession of any knowledge
that man was forbidden to gain. Holiness
is conformity to God's law, which was written
on his heart, and "love is the fulfilling of
the law." Can ally one believe that our
first parents must sin against God before
they coutld love and obey him? The truth
is, man, as he came from the hand of God,
must have been holy or unholy, for his soul
possesses moral affections of which it can no
more divest itself than it can revolutionize
its nature; and those affections are necessarily
right or wrong, holy or sinful, and so are the
acts which flow from them. To say, there
* "Quest. of Ages," p. 13.
67
6 * 
68   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
fore, as does this writer, that, "in his primeval
state," man was innocent and "very good,"
but not holy, is absurd.
Another writer of the same creed says:
"The creation in the divine likeness no more
proves man's absolute immortality than it
proves his eternal  pre-existence, his olmniscience or his possession of any other divine
attribute." * If by the phrase "absolute immortality" le means an immortality which
is either underived or independent of God,
we contend for no such immortality.  But if
he means immortality in the sense in which
this word is universally applied to the soul,
as already explained, le talks absurdly, and
contradicts his own doctrine.  Hle  himself
teaches that believers in Christ are to possess
immnortality.   Does  he mean  by this that
they are to possess one of the divine attributes? The bodies of the saints at the resurrection are to "put on immortality."  Will
they be clothed with divine attributes? Mlay
* "Debt and Grace," p. 166. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
not the soul of man, then, be immortal, without becoming infinite?
Another dashing writer resorts to syllogistic
reasoning thus: "Formally stated, thei] argument is this: 1. God only hath immortality.  2. Man is created in the image of
God.  3. Therefore man is immortal." And
he shows up the absurdity of the argument
by another syllogism: " 1. God is omnipresent. 2. Man is created in the image of
God. 3. Therefore man is omnipresent!"*
It is scarcely necessary to say to the intelligent reader that sensible men are not accustomed to resort to such nonsense in their reasonings as this writer attributes to them. The
argument, correctly stated, is this: 1. God is
a spirit.  2. The soul of man was created in
the image of God.  3. Therefore the soul of
man is spirit. Another syllogism is necessary
to complete the argument, viz.: 1. Spirit is not,
like matter, subject to decay and death. 2.
The soul of man is spirit. 3. Therefore the
* "Mortal and Immortal," p. 9.
69 
70    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
soul of man is not subject to decay and
death.
It may be worth while to pause here long
enough to expose another piece of shallow
sophistry.   Replying to the argument'that
"the soul of man is immaterial, and therefore is immortal," one of our authors says:
"The premise is merely a negative proposition, from which a positive conclusion cannot be justly drawn. It merely states what
the soul of man is not." And he tests the
logic thus: "Man is not an ant, therefore he
is an archangel. This paper is not ivory,
therefore it is gold." *  This is a totally incorrect statement of the argument. The man
who would reason thus would simply render
himself ridiculous.  There are but two substances in the universe, the material and the
immaterial, or matter and spirit; and when
the advocates of the immortality of the soul
say that it is immaterial, they mean that it is
spirit, not matter. This usage of the word
* "Quest. of Ages," p. 4. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
immaterial must be known to every scholar.
The proposition, therefore, is not merely a
negative one: it is both negative and positive.
The meaning is that the soul is not matter,
but spirit, and therefore it is not mortal, but
is immortal.
The inspired history of the creation of man,
then, proves that his soul is spirit, not matter.  And if it is spirit, it is immortal, unless
spirits die.
But we are met with the triumphant reply that this argument proves all animals
immortal, and, therefore, proves too much.
" Are not their souls," it is asked, "reduced
to nonentity by means of death?"  But where
is the evidence that the spirits of animals
are reduced to nonentity by death? "Nor
can we find anything," says Butler, "throughout the whole analogy of ntature, to afford us
even the slightest presumption that animals
ever lose their living powers, much less if it
were possible that they lose them by death,
for we have no faculties wherewith to trace
71 
72   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
any beyond or through it, so as to see what
becomes of them. This event removes them
from our view. It destroys the sensible proof,
which we had before their death, of their being possessed of living powers, but does not
appear to afford the least reason to believe
that they are then or by that event deprived
of them." * It is neither wise nor safe to
assume without evidence that the spirits of
animals perish, and to conclude that, therefore, the souls of men die also.
But if there is no reason to believe that
the spirits of animals perish, the evidence
must be very strong that the souls of men
are immortal; for they possess an incomparably higher nature, and, therefore, as we
must conclude, an incomparably higher destiny. The instincts of animals do not approximate the noble intellectual powers of the
soul of man; they are utterly incapable of
moral character, the peculiar glory of man,
or of conceiving of the eternal future, and of
* " Analogy." 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
being influenced by thle motives drawn from
the future.  If, therefore, it were certain that
what are called the spirits of animals become
extinct, this would not afford even a presumptive evidence that the soul of man, created in the image of God, dies.  The argument, therefore, from the creation of man, is
unanswerable.
73 
CHAPTER IV.
THE RATIONAL ARGUMENT.
IT will be satisfactory now to inquire how
far the known properties of the soul confirm the obvious meaning of the Scriptures
respecting its nature and destiny. Some of
the annihilationist authors insist that "whatever we know of a future lifb must come to
us by direct revelation," that "reason cannot prove man to be immortal-the oracle is
dumb, or, like those of Delphi and Dodona,
mnutters only an ambiguous reply that leaves
us in utter bewilderment."   It is true that
some philosophers, )both in ancient and modern
times, have doubted or denied the immortality
of the soul, but many of them have also
doubted  or denied  the existence  of God.
Now,  it is certain (for the Scriptures  so
declare) that the works of' nature afford
74 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
innumerable clear proofs of his being, and
illustrations of his  perfections.  The  same
modes of reasoning that led them to false
conclusions on the latter subject may have
misled thenm on the former. He who could
study the wonders of nature without discovering the existence of nature's God might
easily study the visible man without learning
the nature and destiny of the invisible soul.
On both of these subjects we doubtless need
the light of revelation, but the teachings of
revelation on both may be confirmed by those
of reason.  When we have gained, by the
light of revelation, the idea of one infinitely
perfect God, we can see cIearly, in the works
of nature, the evidences of his being and
of his perfections.  And so, when we have
learned from the Scriptures the natture of the
soul, we may discover, in its known properties,
strong confirmation of their obvious teaching.
For if the works of the infinite Spirit reveal
his nature and attributes it is absurd to assert
that the works of finite spirits cannot do the
7
75 
76    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
same for them. As in studying the character
of God, so in examining into the nature of
the soul, we must avail ourselves of both
sources of information, revelation and facts.
But another writer, of the same creed,
magnifies the discoveries of the science of
physiology as strongly confirming the doctrine of the Bible, as he understands it, that
the soul is mortal. He talks learnedly of
"the microscopic spermratozoon in which the
man is originated, and from which he is born,"
.and which "contains within its mysterious
minuteness the vital and active iimmlaterial
principle that is essentially the fuiture man,
being the soul of the future man." He tells
us, too, of "the vital seminal souls" that
perish and are no more.* MTe are disposed
to give to the science of physiology all the
credit which is due to it; but when we are
told that it has discovered that immaterial
souls perish and are no more, we boldly
deny that it has made any such discoveries.
* "Quest. of Ages," pp. 35; 36. 
IMMORTALITY OF THIE SOUL.
Its investigations are limited to that which
is material, and no microscope has yet been
made that can reveal the immaterial soul.
Rejecting, then, the opinion that reason can
afford us no light on this subject, rejecting
also the unscientific pretensions of physiologists who would push us into materialism,
we proceed to the inquiry, how far the known
properties of the soul afford information respecting its nature and destiny. Our examination will be brief, and not at all metaphysical or obscure.
We begin what we have to say on this
subject with the truth, admitted by all, that
substances are known to us only by their
properties. It follows legitimately, from this
truth, that different properties indicate substances as different-in other words, that substances are as different from each other as
their properties. For example, the properties
of light are very different from those of air,
and it cannot be doubted that the two substances are in their nature as different. The
77 
78    IMMORTALITY OF THiE SOUL.
same may be affirmed of an indefinite number
of material substances.   There  are certain
properties in which they all agree, and, therefore, all are called rnatter. There are other
properties in which they differ, indicating as
great difference in the substances
Nowv, if it appear that two substances have
not a single property in common, but that
their properties are not only different, but
opposite, the conclusion is fully warranted
that the substances possess radically different
natures. And this being so, to call them by
the samne name is to abuse language and mislead the mind. But it is a fact that mind
and matter possess not a single property in
common. It is a fact that the properties of
these two substances are not only different,
but opposite.  This will be made clear by
comparing, or rather contrasting, the properties of mind and those of matter.
I. One of the properties of matter is inertness.  It cannot move itself, nor stop its
motion. One of the most remarkable prop 
IMMORTALITY OF THE S( UL.
erties of mind is activity.  It can no  more
cease to think and feel than it can cease to
exist. The question has been much discussed
whether the mind  always thinks.   Locke
stands prominent amongst those who answer
this question negatively. We maintain that
the evidence is conclusive in favor of all
affirmative answer, that the mind never ceases
to think. WVe proceed to assign reasons in
support of this view:
1. All agree that, during waking hours,
the mind is incessantly active. We cannot,
if we would, cease to think. We may choose
the subject that shall occupy our thoughts,
but we must think. If we do not furnish
our minds w-ith a subject, they will find one,
or will wander from object to object, controlled by the laws of association, till they
light on sorme theme that takes hold of the
feelings, and there confines the thoughtts.  Oni
this point there is no controversy.
2. All agree that the mind is often active
during sleep; for all admit that dreams  do
7 i
79 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
constantly occur-that often the mind is intensely active and the feelings greatly excited in dreams.  It is, then, certain that
sleep does not necessarily suspend thought,
for if it did there could be no such thing as
dreaming. But if sleep d(loes not suspend
thought, do we know of anything connected
with sleep that does at any time suspend it?
If there is anythlling of the kind, it is certain
it operates only occasionally, not uniformly,
for we do often dreamn.  But no one pretends
to have discovered any other cause of the
suspension of thought in sleep. Since, then,
thought is not suspended by sleep, and we
know of nothling connected with sleep that
does at any time suspend it, the conclusion
seemrs clearly warranted that the mind does
always think during sleep-that activity is
one of its essential properties.
Locke argues that it is "hard to conceive
that anything should think and not be conscious of it." But the sleeping man is conscious of thinking, although he does not al
80
ti
/i 
IMMORTALITY OF TIIE SOUL.
ways, on waking, remember his thoughts. But
Locke replies to this: "That the soul in a
sleeping man should be this moment busy
a-thinking, and the next moment, in a waking
man, not remember nor be able to recollect
one jot of all those thoughts, is very hard to
be conceived."  To this we answer  1st. That very often, during our waking
hours, we  entirely fail to  remember  the
thoughts that have but just occupied our
minds.  Who has not often, whilst in conversation, suddenly lost the thought he was
just about to express, and been wholly unable to recall it? This is very common,
especially when anything has occurred suddenly to interrupt the train of thought. Is
it strange, then, that on awaking from sound
sleep, and finding ourselves surrounded with
objects wholly different from those which
have occupied the mind, we should fail to
recall our sleeping thoughts, especially when
there is nothing to call our attention to them?
Some of our waking thoughts we wholly for
81
0 
82    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
get, others we remember indistinctly, whilst
others are vividly impressed on our minds.
The same principle governs our recollection
of waking and of sleeping thoughts. That is to
say, whatever takes strong hold of the feelings is remembered distinctly, whilst whatever awakens little interest is forgotten or
imperfectly remembered.  A distressing or a
delightful dream is likely to be remembered,
whilst dreams that have not strongly interested the feelings are forgotten.
Sir William Hamilton, giving his own experience, says: "I have always observed
that, when suddenly awaked during sleep
(and to ascertain the fact I have caused myself to be roused at different seasons of the
night), I have always been able to observe
that I was in the middle of a dream.   The
recollection of this dream was not always
equally vivid.  On  some occasions  I was
able to trace it back until the train was gradually lost at a remote distance; on others I
was hardly aware of more than one or two 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
of the latter links of the chain, and sometimes was scarcely certain of more than the
fact that I was not awakened from an unconscious state."  The experience of Hamilton, we do not doubt, corresponds with that
of most persons whose attention has been
turned to this point.   It certainly corresponds with our own experience through a
series of years; and we fully endorse the following statement made by him: "I have myself at different times turned my attention to
the point, anId, as far as my observations go,
they certainly tend to prove that, during
sleep, the mind is never either inactive or
wholly unconscious of its activity."
2d. But that the activity of the mind during sleep is not disproved by the fact that
often persons do not remember to hlave
dreamed, is fully established  by the  phenomena of somnambulism. That in this state
the mind is active, often intensely active, caninot be doubted; and yet the somnambulist,
when awake, never remembers what he was
83 
84    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
thinking of when asleep. "It is the peculiarity of somnambulism-it is the differential
quality by which that state is contradistiiiguished from the state of dreaming-that we
have no recollection, when we awake, of what
has occurred during its continuance. Consciousness is thus cut in two: memory does
not connect the train of consciousness in the
one state with the train of consciousness in
the other. When the patient again relapses
into the state of somnambulism, he again
remembers all that had occurred during every
former alternative of that state. But he not
only remembers this: he recalls also the
events of his normal existence, so that,
whereas the patient in his somnambulic crisis
has a memory of his whole life, in his waking intervals he has a memory only of half
of his life."* It is not only true that in the
somnambulic state the mind is active, but it
possesses an extraordinary activity. "In this
remarkable state," says Hiamilton, "the various mental faculties are usually in a higher
* Hamilton. 
IMMORTALITY OF THIE SOUL.
degree of power than in the natural;" and he
mentions having three works written during
the crisis by three different somnambulists.
It is, then, clear beyond a question that the
mind is often intensely active in sleep, whilst
it has no recollection in its waking hours of
the thougts that have occupied it.
3. There are facts which demonstrate that
even in what is called the comatose state the
mind is active.  We are aware that this has
bee(n (denied. Dr. Good, in his "Book of Nature," maintains that in complete paroxysms
of apoplexy, sleepy coma, suspended animation from drowning, and the like, no man is
conscious of a single thought or idea. But
evnen if we had no facts to prove the contrary,
all that- could be affirmed would be that, on
coming out of these states, persons do not rev,e,ber to hleave been thinking. But Dr. Abercrombie states the following interesting fact:
"A case has been related to me of a boy who
at the age of four received a fracture of the
skull, for which he underwent the operation
85 
8(6  lIMMORTALITY OF TIlE SOUL.
of trepan.  He was at the time in a state of
perfect stupor, and after his recovery retained
no recollection either of the accident or the
operation.  At the age of fifteen, during the
delirium of a fever, he gave his mother a
correct description of the operation and the
persons who were present at it, with their
dress and other miniute particulars.  He had
never been observed to allude to it before,
and no means were known by which hle could
have acquired  the circumstances which  he
mentioned."*  He  mentions  several other
facts  proving the activity of the mind in
perfect apoplexy.
The evidence seems conclusive that the
mind always thinks-that activity is an esselntial property of mind.  It follows that
the mind is not matter, but a substance of an
opposite nature.
This conclusion is greatly strengthened by
the fieet that the activity of the mind is voluntary.  Whlilst we cannot cease thinking, we
* "Intellec. Phlilos.," Part iii., Sec. 3, 4. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
are yet conscious of the power to give direction to our thoughts-to choose the subject
about which our thoughts at any particular
time shall be occupied. In proof of this we
need only appeal to the consciousness of every
man.  ANow, it is certain that matter is governed by fixed laws.   Voluntariness, therefore, cannot be predicated of it. Were the
mind material, it must act as it is acted on.
The certain fact that its activity, so far as the
subject of its thoughts is concerned, is volutntary, proves that it is not matter.
The arigument is complete when we state
the firther fact that much of the activity of
the mind is not only voluntary, but moral.
That the human mind has thoughts, feelings
and purposes which may be properly characterized as right or wrong, is a truth which is
intuitive. Few comparatively have ever
(lenied it even in theory. All have acknowledg,ed it in practice.  But were the mind a
material organism governed by fixed laws,
its acts would be neither right nor wrong.
$
87 
88     IM-IMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
Men would be incapable alike of virtue or
vice.
II. The mind presents as strong a contrast
with matter in its other properties as in its
ceaseless, voluntary, moral activity.  Matter,
for example, is exteide-l, mind is not.  Matter is d(ivisible, mind is in(ivisible.  Matter
possesses the property  of attraction, mind
does not. As already remarked, these two
substances, mind and matter, possess not a
single  property in common.   In all their
properties they stand in striking contrast.
The conclusion is fully warranted that the
mind is not material.
1I!. It is important to notice another remiarkable feature of the soul which may reveal its nature, viz.: its capacity to look to
the future, and its susceptibility of being influenced by motives drawn from the eternal
future, togetlher with its intense desire to live
for ever. From early childhood it begins to
look forward, and to have desires, hopes and
fears respecting future interests.;  Nor is it 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
possible to confine such thoughts and anxieties to the boundaries of time. Under the
impulse of its nature, the soul overleaps those
boundaries, and inquires anxiously respecting
the eternal ages, and both its moral conduct
and its happiness are mightily influenced by
the prospects that open before it along the
track of those ages. Hope seizes upon and
rejoices exceedingly in a bright future, and
fears agitate the soul when the future is overcast with dark and portentous clouds. Nothimg short of eternal life can satisfy its hopes
or subdue its fears. All but the most degraded men act habitually more or less under the influence of motives drawn from
eternity. Their moral conduct is more or
less controlled by such motives, and their happiness is illncreased or diminished by hope or
fear.
Such, in a few words, are the leading features of the human soul.  Others might be
mentioned, but these are sufficient for the argument. In view of these properties of the
89 
90    IMM3ORTALITY OF TEE SOUL.
soul, we raise two questions, viz.: first, To
what conclusion do they conduct us respecting its nature? and, secondly, To what conclusion do  they conduct  us respecting its
destiny?
1. Wlhat is the nature of the soul, as discovered through its properties?  Is it matter, or is it spirit.? It is certainly the one
or the other, since these are the only substances known to men.  One of the annihilationist writers, as already quoted, once and
again objects to what he calls "the silent
assumption that because the soul of man is
not matter, therefore it is spirit;" and he evidently seeks to make the impression that it
is neither matter nor spirit.  And yet he applies to the whole man, soul and body, the
language, " Dust  thou art, and unto dust
shalt thou return." But it is certain that
the soul is a stubstance, for it has properties,
and until some third substance shall be discovered, we must conclude that it is either
matter or spirit   He  affirmus, indeed, that 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
"mere human reason does not and cannot
know  anything of spirit, except as apprehending the existence and ubiquity of God
through a consideration of his visible works."*
This is a mere assertion, and it is absurd. The
workls of the infinite Spirit reveal him: why
may not the works of finite spirits reveal
them?  The truth is, we are quite as well
acquainted with spirit as with matter.  We
known nothing of either except what we learn
from their properties, but we are as well acquainted with the properties of spirit as with
those of matter.
TWe have before us, then, two substances
whose properties are essentially different, and
even opposite.  The one is inert, the other is
active.  The one moves only as it is moved,
the other is perpetually moving itself. The
one is controlled by fixed laws, the other is
constantly putting forth voluntary acts. The
one, because governed by fixed laws, is incapable of moral and accountable action, the
*i" Qest. of Ages," pp. 5, 34..
8*
91 
92    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
other is a moral agent, the subject of a moral
government. Now, the conclusion to which
we are authorized, and even constrained, to
come, is this: Since these substances are
known to us only by their properties, and
since their properties are essentially different,
and even opposite, the substances are in their
nature essentially different. The one we call
matter, the other we call spirit. But it matters little by what names they may be designated: the radical difference in their natures
is demonstrated. And yet, as before remarked, it is impossible for any one to tell what
spirit is, except by saying it is a substance
that thinks, reasons, chooses, loves, hates,
rejoices, sorrows, hopes, fears. It is enough,
however, that the two substances differ essentially in their nature.
2. The next question relates to the destiny
of the soul. To what conclusion are we conducted respecting its destiny by the consideration of its properties? 1st. In the first place,
since it is certain that it is a substance whose 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
nature is radically different from that of the
body, there is no reason to suppose that the
death of the body destroys or impairs its life.
For since the two substances are in nature
radically different, they must be operated on
by causes as different. Those causes, therefore, which destroy the life of the body, such
as a bullet passing into the head or the heart,
in all probability have no effect whatever
upon the soul, except to dissolve the mysterious tie that binds the two together. Since,
then, there is no reason to think that the
death of the body impairs the life of the soul,
and since we know of no other causes which
are likely to operate on the soul to extinguish
its life, the only conclusion to which we can
come is, that it survives the body, and lives
in another state.  Still further, since we know
the soul only as an active, thinking substance,
since activity seems to belong to its very natutre, it cannot be supposed that at the death
of the body it ceases to be active and becomes
unconscious. 2d. The innate desire of the
93 
94     IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
soul for immortality, together with its capacity to conceive the eternal future, and to be
mightily influenced, both in its moral conduct and its happiness, by considerations and
motives drawn fromin eternity, indicate the
purpose of the Creator that it shall live for
ever. But it is objected that this argument
"is based upon the assumption that an ardent
desire to possess an object is an evidence that
the object so ardently desired is actually possessed," and that "if, as an argument, it were
logical and sound, it would fill the face of the
inhabited earth with wealthy and powerful
men, for every man who has an ardent desire
for money would be a millionaire, and every
uman who thirsts for power would be a potentate." * This objection would be a complete
refutation of the argument if we were weak
enough to contend that the mere fact that
men desire immortality proves them immortal.
But this is not the argument. The argument
is based on the broad principle that the de           * "Quest. of Ages," p. 9; 10. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
sires, capacities and susceptibilities which God
has imparted to his creatures were designed
to adapt them to the spheres in which they
were to act, and to the destinies they were
to fill; and consequently those desires, capacities and susceptibilities do reveal the purposes of God respecting them. This principle
is seen to prevail throughout the whole animal
kingdom. This will not be disputed. But
let us see how the principle applies to man.
His Creator gave him appetites, and he provided the proper means for their use and
gratification.  He endowed him with natural
and social affections, and thus his purpose
was indicated that men should live in families
and in society. - He imparted to the soul a
taste for the beautiful, and he filled the visible
universe with beautiful objects. He gave to
the soul a moral sense, and he gave the moral
law to guide it. He imparted to it moral
affections, and hlie bade it love him and its
fellow-creatures, and be happy. Thus far it
is certain that for every appetite, affection,
95 
96    IMMORTALITY OF THlE SOUL.
taste and susceptibility of man God provided
corresponding spheres of action and means of
gratification, and those appetites, affections,
tastes and susceptibilities indicate his purposes concerning man.
But the Creator also gave to the soul such
a nature that it is capable of looking to the
eternal future, and of being powerfully influenced by motives drawn thence, and that
it intensely desires to live for ever. And
here a broad distinction is to be made between those desires which belong to the nature of the soul as it came from the hand of
God, and those which result from ignorance
and depravity. The former clearly indicate
the purposes of the Creator respecting the soul;
the latter are the evidences of its estrangement
from him.  "The love of money is the root
of all evil." Will it be pretended that God
originally planted this root in the soul? The
love of power is selfishness. Will it be said
that this is native to the soul as it came 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
from the hand of the Creator? Is it not
written "that God hath made man upright"?
And is it not true that the wiser and the
more virtuous men become, the less they
thirst for either riches or power?
But how is it with the desire for immortality? Is it, like the love of money and of
power, the result of depravity and alienation
from God? It exists in all men, nor is it
possible for any one, if he would, to banish it
from his soul. Depravity may weaken but
cannot destroy it. And it is certain that the
wiser and the holier men become, the stronger
grows this desire to live for ever.  It is the
wicked and degraded who say, "Let us eat
and drink, for to-morrow we die." It is the
wise and good who live and labor "in hope
of eternal life." Moreover, this is a feature
of the soul to which the Scriptures constantly
appeal.  "What will it profit a man," asks
our Lord, "if he shall gain - the whole world
and lose his soul?" The attempt to place
such a desire on an equality with the sinful
97 
98    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
love of money or of power shows how loosely
some of those men reason.
But the argument is still stronger. It is
not based on even an intense desire which
belongs to the nature of the soul, but also on
a corresponding capacity and susceptibility.
The soul is capable of conceiving of the eternal future, and it is susceptible of feeling powerfully the motives drawn from that future. Its
moral conduct and its happiness are thus powerfully influenced. It is so constituted that
it cannot even enjoy present blessings unless
the future seem bright. Hope must sweeten
the blessings we  now possess, or fear will
embitter them. Hope must lighten present
trials, or fear will add to their weight.
Now, will any one pretend that these noble features of the soul give no indications
of the purposes of the Creator respecting it?
Are these to constitute the one fearful exception to the general rule that for every capacity, susceptibility and desire which the
Creator imparted to man he provided a cor 
IMMiORTALITY OF THE SOUL.,
res.ponding sphere of action and nAdsd of
gratificationl?  If these do not constitute a
marvelous exception, then it is certain that
the innate desire of the soul to live for ever,
taken in connection with its capacity to fcel
the motives drawn from eternity, indicates
the purpose of the Creator that it shoutld
possess immortality.   Otherwvise we  must
conclude that he designed men to live under
a delusive hope of eternal life, or that he so
formed the soul that, knowing the truth, it
must be wretched.  Most assuredly the features of the soul now under consideration
reveal the design of the Creator that it should
live for ever; and if such was his purpose,
beyond a question he imparted to it a nature
adapted to its destiny. It is therefore immortal.
IV. These arguments are greatly strengthcued by the almost universal belief in the
doctrine of the soul's immortality in all ages
and nations. W'e are aware that the fact of
this general belief has been called in questioji.
9           ~              ~ e    e  v  *v
99 
100   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
But with the exception of some of those
called philosophers, there is no ground for
doubt on the subject. Archbishop Whateley,
whilst insisting that the doctrine of immortality was not really known till Jesus Christ
revealed it, acknowledges that the ancient
heathen lawgivers taught it "from a persuasion of its importance for men's conduct."*
And it is certain that it has entered into al]
the different forms of religion. Many of the
gods worshiped by the ancient pagan nations,
it is known, were deceased men. "As soon,"
says Gibbon, "as it was allowed that sages
and heroes who had lived or who had died
for the benefit of their country were exalted
to a state of power and immortality, it was
universally confessed that they deserved, if
not the adoration, at least the reverence, of
all mankind."' t The learned Dr. Leland
speaks of this form of idolatry as one which
began very early and prevailed very gener
* "Future State," p. 24.
t.Gibon's "D.ecline and Fell of Rome," v. i., p. 18.
ee. ee.e ee~~ 
IMMORTALITY OF THEA SOUL.   101
ally in the world, and "which produced an
amazing multiplicity of gods, and continually increased." He quotes the statement of
Philo Biblius that "the most ancient barbarians, especially the Phoenicians and Egyptians, from whom other people took this custom, reckoned those amongst the greatest gods
who had been the inventors of things useful
and necessary to human life, and who had
been benefactors to the nations." Cicero said
that "almost the whole heaven is filled with
the human race; that upon searching into
the ancient accounts, and what the Greek
writers have deduced from them, it will be
found that even those that are accounted the
greater deities, dii majorumrn gentiurn, were
taken from among men into heaven, that
their sepulchres were shown in Greece." *
The practice of necromancy, which prevailed in the days of Moses, proves the same
thing, for "it is the art of raising up the
ghosts of deceased persons to get informa    * Leland "On Revolution," v. i., pp. 99, 104. 
102   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
tion from them concerning future events."
The ancient doctrine of metempsychosis could
not have existed without the doctrine of the
immortality of the soul.   "The Egyptians
believed that at the death of men their souls
transmigrated into other human  bodies, and
that if they had been vicious they were imprisoned in the bodies of unclean or ill-conditioned beasts, to expiate in them their past
transgressions, and that after a revolution of
some centuries they again animated other
human bodies."* In one form or another
the doctrine of the soul's immortality has
been almost universal, and, as Dr. Isaac Watts
well remarks: "The doctrine of rewards and
punishments in a separate state of souls hath
been one of the very chief principles or motives whereby virtue and religion have been
maintained in this sinful world throughout
all former ages and nations."
Very few indeed of all the unnumbered
millions who have believed this doctrine
* Rollin's "Ancient History," v. I., p. 114. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  103
could have given any philosophical reasons
in favor of its truth, much less could they
have given any satisfactory account of the
state of the soul after death. Some, too,
have attempted to prove it by arguments
which are not sound. The same may be
said of the universal belief in the being of
God. The prevalence of this latter belief is
accounted for by referring it to man's moral
nature. The mind is so constituted that it
must and will have religion of some kind,
and, therefore, men will have some object of
religious worship. May not the general belief of mankind in the doctrine of the immortality of the soul be accounted for in the
same way?- Can it be accounted for in any
other way?
It is a remarkable fact that skeptical
philosophers, with all their learning, have
been wholly unable to shake the faith
of any considerable portion of our race in
either of these great doctrines for any considerable length of time. The French phil     9* 
104   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
osophers might deify Reason, and inscribe
on the public cemeteries, "Death is an eternal
sleep;" but the deep innate convictions of the
outraged human soul soon made their voice
heard above the tumult of passion and crime,
reasserted the being of God, and at the same
time wiped out the degrading inscription
from the cemeteries.   A French atheist on
trial for his life might say, "My name is
Danton-my abode will soon be nonentity," *
but the shudder with which the sentiment is
heard is the soul's protest against the degrading doctrine. The fact that the faith of the
great majority of mankind in the immortality
of the soul, like that in the being of a God,
however  mixed  up with superstitions and
absurdities, has remained firm throughout all
ages, affords strong evidence that it finds its
foundation in the very nature of man, and if
so, it must be true. Had it been a doctrine
of philosophers, it would have been received,
like their other doctrines, by but a small por      *AllIison's "History of Europe," p. 36. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.   105
tion of the race. Had it been merely traditionary, it would never have taken such
hold of the human  mind.   To overcome
this deep-seated conviction of the soul is a
Herculean task. They who contend against
the noblest convictions and aspirations of man
should be cogent reasoners; and the proof
must indeed be conclusive which would
justify us in renouncing a faith apparently
grounded in the nature of the soul. 
CHAPTER V.
THE INTERMEDIATE STATE.
E come now to the third question pro     posed for discussion, viz.: WHAT DO
THE SCRIPTURES  TEACH  RESPECTING THE
STATE OF THE SOUL BETWEEN DEATH AND
THE RESURRECTION?
Man is a fallen creature. By his transgression he has incurred the penalty of God's
law. It is important, in the further discussion of this subject, to inquire whether the
penalty denounced against sin has deprived
the soul of its immortality. Or do the teachings of the Scriptures respecting the intermediate state lead to the conclusion, that the
soul dies with the body, and that between
death and the resurrection man has no conscious existence? The sentence pronounced
upon Adam (Gen. iii. 14-19) is'interpreted by
106 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  107
annihilationists to mean that man is wholly
of earthly origin, and at death is reduced to
"elemental atoms;" that "no part of man
remains in a separate conscious state in death,
but that the whole man lies in unconsciousness
till called to new life by the resurrection;"
that "death is a state of non-existence."
Hudson, shrinking from the absurdities of
materialism, to which his theory inevitably
leads, and holding that the soul continues to
exist as " an entity," regards it as dependent
upon the physical organism for active existence.  Hie thinks it necessary to teach that
it has, in the intermediate state, a kind of
half consciousness, a degree or so above annihilation.  "May we not suppose," he asks,
"that in the disembodied state the soul is
lost in an intuition of its past history, with
no process of thinking, and with no note of
time?  Not a state of thinking-perhaps, on
the other hand, not of unconsciousness-but
of momentary all-consciousness, the same to
those who die soon or late, the resurrection 
108   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
and the judgment close following." And he
consoles himself and his readers with the suggestion: "May not a little repose be better
for us ere the dawn of the sleepless, endless
day?" * Grave as the subject is, there is something in this query so ludicrous as to provoke
a smile. The soul, we are apt to think, must
have become greatly exhausted in its few years
of thought and labor here, to require a few
hundred years of repose before it is prepared
to enter upon its eternal rest! As for the
supposed state of the soul, in which it does
not think, yet is not unconscious, possesses
all-consciousness and is lost in the intuition of its past history, it is no conceivable
state at all. The sentences just quoted are
simply a string of words conveying no idea,
but poorly concealing the degrading doctrine
which the writer dare not plainly advocate.
If it be found, on examination, that the
Scriptures teach that the soul survives the
body and passes into another state of con          * "Debt and Grace," pp. 260, 261. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  109
scious existence, a very strong evidence will
thus be obtained in favor of its immortality.
1. iHere it is important to say that nothing that we know of the nature and properties of the soul affords the slightest evidence that it is dependent upon the body
for conscious, active existence. So long as it
continues in the body, its activities must be
exerted mainly through the body; but whilst
we have no means of knowing how it will
put forth its activities in its disembodied state,
we certainly have no reason to believe that it
cannot act in such a state.  On the contrary,
it may be capable of higher activities than
whilst in the gross, material body.
II. Still further, it is a fact of great significance that nothing is more familiar to the
mind of the reader of the Scriptures than
the activities of spirits. Angels, it is true,
have sometimes appeared in human forms, as
when they appeared to Abraham and Lot.
But we are expressly taught that angels are
"spirits," and we constantly read in the New 
110   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
Testament of "unclean spirits." Dr. Morris,
one of the annihilationist authors, says of the
devil and his angels, "These wicked spirits
are in the heavenlies as in their province,
the possession and occupancy of which they
are yet permitted of God to retain." And
he gives us an alarming idea of the activities
and powers of the prince of evil spirits. He
says: "As men in general have little or no
conception of the moral power of Satan for
evil, so have they no adequate conception of
his intellectual and physical power for mischief on the earth....  He is independent
of all mechanical contrivances and chemical
appliances.... And by his own mere mental
confidence, whenever God permits him, Satan
can subordinate the laws and apply the forces
of electricity and meteorology, and can change
the condition of animal chemistry, and can
cause muscular contraction," etc.  He extols
"Satan's proficiency in mental  and moral
science, as evinced in the experimental history of the saints of God, in all the tempta 
IIMOPRTALITY OF TlHE SOUL.   111l
tions which they endure. He tells us: "There
is no reason for believing that the presence
of demons in the midst of human society is
more restricted, or that their evil power is
less active, now than in the days of the Son
of man and of his apostles.... Men have
little or no conception of the intelligence and
power of demons, who caln not only afflict and
torture men through the corporeal organism,
but can  form a superhuman  and spiritual
amalgam (so to speak) with the souls of men.
They  are spirits, evil spirits, and  seven of
them, yea, many of them, can thlLs combine
with one human soul," * etc.
It is, then, admitted that one of the most
familiar truths in the Scriptures is the existence, the immense  activity and power  of
spirits.  But if angels and, evil spirits not
only possess a conscious existence, but put
forth incessant activities without material
bodies, if they can act either through the
human  body  or without any  body, there
* "Quest. of Ages," pp.70-73.
10 
112   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
can be nothing improbable in the doctrine
that the spirits of men, good and bad, when
released from their bodies, will be equally
active. Nay, the fact that disembodied spirits
do live and act compels the conclusion, unless there be positive evidence to the contrary,
that the spirits of men will also live and act
out of the body. Accordingly, the inspired
writers speak as familiarly of being out of
the body as of being in it, of being absent
from the body as of being present in it, of
-putting off their tabernacle, the body, as of
putting off their garments.
III. The doctrine that the soul survives
the body and possesses a conscious existence,
happy.or unhappy, between death and the
resurrection, is clearly established, as we believe, by a comparison of the different classes
of passages in the Scriptures bearing on this
point.  We have no hesitation in admitting
that there are many passages which, if they are
to be taken as teaching all that is true of the
nature and destiny of man, do support the 
IMMORTALITY OF THlE SCUL.  113
doctrine that the soul as well as the body
dies. Nay, they teach more than this, viz.:
that death is the final end of man, and that
he is to have no future. Besides the sentence
pronounced on Adam (Gen. iii. 19), such
passages as the following are adduced as
proving that the soul dies with the body:
"For in death there is no remembrance of
thee: in the grave who shall give thee
thanks?"  "Wilt thou show wonders to the
dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee?"
"The dead praise not the Lord, neither any
that go down into silence."  "Put not your
trust in princes, nor ill the son of man, in
wvhom there is no help. His breath goeth
forth, he ret-urneth to his earth, in that very
day his thoughts perish."  "For the living
know that they shall die, but the dead know
not anything, neither have they any more a
reward; for the memory of them is forgotten."
For the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down into
the pit cannot hope for thy truth.'The liv 
114   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
ing, the living, he shall praise thee as I do
this day."   "If I wait, the grave is mine
house. I have made my bed ill the darkness.
I have said to corruption, Thou art my father; to the worm, Thou art my mother and
my sister.  And where now is my hope? as
for my hope, who shall see it?" *
It is readily admitted that these passages
favor the doctrine they are cited to prove, if
they reveal all that is true of the state of the
dead; but, as just remarked, it must also be
noted that some of them, thus understood,
prove a great deal more than the annihiilationists believe.   They prove that death is
the final end of man's being-it is his utter
destruction.  Take, for example, the language
of Job: "The  grave is mine house," i. e.,
my final abode.   "I have said to corruption,
Thou art mny father; to the worm, Thou art
my mother and my sister," i. e., I have no
* Ps. vi. 5;  Ps. xxxviii. 10; Ps. cxv. 17; Ps. cxlvi.
3, 4; Eccles. ix. 5, 6, 10; Isa. xxxviii. 18, 19; Job xvii.
13, 15. 
IMMAORTrALITY OF THE SOUL.   115
more a future to hope for than corruption
and the worm. "And where now is my
hope?" The language, taken by itself, expresses in the strongest manner the dying
out of hope-the blasting of all prospects for
the future. Is this, it may be asked, the
language of one who has the hope of a gloriolus resurrection and of eternal bliss? And
why all this gloomy talk about corruption
and the worm, when, as the annlihilationists
insist, the resurrection will appear to be but
a moment after death?-when, as they say,
Paul desired to die because he would seem to
be with Christ immediately? * In not one of
these passages is there the slightest intimation that there is to be a resurrection, or that
man has a future to hope for.  Why, then,
do not the advocates of the mortality of the
soutl go farther, and infer from these passages
that death is the end of man?  Do they not
insist that death is the final extinction of the
beasts, and does not Solomon put man on a level
"Debt and Grace," pp. 260, 261.
10* 
11.6  IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
with the beasts? "For that which befalleth the
sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as one dieth, so dieth the other;
yea, they have all one breath, so that a man
hath no pre-eminenlce above a beast; for all is
vanity."*  Hiow, then, do these men escape
the conclusion that death is the end of man?
that there is for him no eternal future? They
must take the ground that these passages do
not teach the whole truth respectin, gman-that
we  cannot conclude from them that maln
finally perishes in the grave-since there are
other portions of Scripture which teach the
doctrine of the resurrection.  And this is the
true ground.  It is absurd to attempt to determine'the nature of the destiny of man fronl
any one text or any one class of texts. If
we would learn the truth concerning the
nature of man and concerning his destiny,
we must collect all that the Scriptures say of
him. The inspired writers sometimes dwell
upon the frailty. the vanity, the worthlessness
* Eccles. iii. 19. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.   117
of man, as when he is compared to grasshoppers and worms.  At other  times they
magnify his importance and dignity as bearing the image of God-as being "the image
and glory of God." At one time they contemplate the death of man as the termination
of all his thoughts, plans and hopes, and their
minds dwell upon the silence and the darkness of the grave. At another they fix their
attention upon the soul, its high destiny and
its glorious or awful future, and then they
tell us distinctly that when the dust returns
to the earth as it was, the spirit returns to
God who gave it-that the dead who have
died in the Lord are now blessed, resting
from their labors.  The truth respecting man
is to be learned from all these classes of texts,
not from any one of them alone.
It is in this way we become acquainted with
the character of Christ, and it is by adopting the course pursued  by annihilationists
that Unitarians prove him to be a creature.
Is he not again and again called a man, a 
118   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
man of sorrows, the Son of man?  Does he
not say expressly, "My  Father is greater
than I"? Let us take such texts as these
as teaching the whole truth respecting the
character of Christ, and  we prove him  a
mere man. But we say to Unitarians: These
passages, it is true, teach that Christ is a
man, and that there is a sense in which the
Father is greater than he, but there are other
passages in which he is declared to be Godto be equal with God. There must, therefore,
be a sense in which he is truly God as well
as a sense in which he is truly man. The
only legitimate conclusion from a comparison
of all the texts is that he possesses two
natures- human and divine, and that, viewed
as man, he is inferior to the Father, viewed
as God, he is equal with the Father.
Precisely thus we ascertain what is the
nature and what the destiny of man.   We
read that he is dust, and at death returns to
dust. We also read that he has a spirit
which is not dust, and does'not return to 
IMMORTALITY OF THIE SOUL. 119
the earth. We read that he sleeps all unconscious in the grave. We also read that
when the body is killed or dies the soul is
not killed, but still lives.  We read of men
dying, and being buried, and seeing corruption. We also read that at death they are
absent from the body, and, if righteous, are
present with the Lord. Now, we know that
what each of these passages teaches is true,
and we know that they do not contradict
each other.  How shall we reconcile them?
Simply by noticing the plain fact that one
class of texts speak of the present life, its
works, hopes, sorrows and joys; another class
speak of the future life. One class of texts
have reference to man's naterial nature and
its destiny; the other, to his spiritual nature
and its destiny.
And this method of interpretation is in
accordance with universal usage. The most
earnest advocates of the immortality of the
soul say of a man, He died and was buried,
and yet they do not believe the soul died 
i120   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
or was buried. All persons say a man was
wounded and a man was grieved. No one
misunderstands such language.  All understand that it is the body that was wounded,
the soul that grieved. Believers in the immortality of the soul have never hesitated to
say that man is mortal, and that man is inmortal. Man is a complex being. His two
natures possess opposite qualities, and consequently opposite things are affirmed of them.
He now lives in one state, he is destined
soon to live in another; and widely different
affirmations are made respecting these widely
different states.
Let us now try to determine, by a candid
comparison of the different classes of Scripture passages which treat of the nature and
destiny of fallen man, whether the sentence
of death pronounced on Adam doomed his
soul and the souls of his posterity to a state
of unconsciousness at the death of the body,
or whether the Scriptures teach that the soul 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  12:1
has a conscious existence between death and
the resurrection.
1. Happily we have an inspired explanation of that sentence. Solomon has told us
what takes place at death.  "Then shall the
dust return to the earth as it was, and the
spirit shall return unto God who gave it." *
From this inspired statement we learn two
most important truths:
1st. That man is not wholly from the dust,
that only one of his natures is derived from
the earth, the other, directly from God. At
death the dust-that part of man which was
taken from the ground-returns to the earth
as it was; butthe spirit-the soul —not being
from the dust, does not go to the earth, but
returns to God, by whom it was given. How
completely Solomon's explanation of death
annihilates the learned criticisms on the
Hebrew "GAH-PHAR-elenkental atoms," by
which the attempt is made  to prove that
man, body and soul, is formed of the dust
* Eccles. xii. 7. 
122  IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
and  must  again  become  dust!  Solomon
teaches us that man has two natures, is composed of two different substances, nzatter and
spirit.
2d. The second truth taught in the passage
under consideration is, that death does not
take both body and soul into the grave, but
only severs the mysterious tie which  has
bound them together, that the spirit, the
soul, may return to God, to give account of
the deeds done in the body. It is absolutely
certain, therefore, that the soul, instead of
sleeping in unconsciousness  in  the grave,
passes into another state of conscious existence.
The obvious meaning of this Scripture is
evaded,  however, by making the Hebrew
word translated spirit signify breath. Says
one of our authors: "If this breath, as drawn
from the surrounding atmosphere, maay be
said to come from God or be given by God,
with the same propriety may it be said, when
it leaves the body at death,' to return to 
IMMORTALITY OF TIIE SOUL.   123
him." * It almost seems like trifling to expose such a criticism. Three considerations
will show the absurdity of it. The first is,
that the word translated spirit (ruah) is the
Hebrew word constantly used to signify the
Spirit of God and the spirit of manl. It is,
therefore, the very word  which  Solomon,
speaking of the soul as spirit, would employ.
Secondly, in no part of the Scriptures do we
find the body of man placed inl contrast with
his breath.   This writer, who  abounds, on
other occasions, in references to what he considers parallel passages, attempts no such
reference here.   Thirdly, in what possible
sense canl it be said that the last breath of a
dying man- returns to God any more than
any other breath he ever drew?  But language in the hands of such critics means just
what they choose to make it mean.
Another writer of the samne creed declines
to say that in this instance the word ruah
means breath, but he thinks "it may be used
*" Mortal or Immortal," pp. 40, 41.
11 
124   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
to signify the motion of the soul in passing
away, and passing into the custody of God."
To sustain this singular notion, he gives us a
curious criticism.  The Hebrew word ruah,
and the corresponding Greek word pne.umct,
he informs  us, mean spirit when le   applied
to God, and also to those born of God.
"But  to man  as  man  the  word'spirit,'
in every department of Holy Scripture, is
used adjectively, as signifying only the motions and emotions of the soul," * This assertion is made for the purpose of escaping
the truth that the human  soul is spirit.  It
would certainly have been expedient to accompany a statement so extraordinary and so
important with some sort of proof, but nlothing of the kind is attempted.  The statement
is untrue, and is absurd. In Numbers xvi.
22, Moses and Aaron are said to have prayed
thus: "0 God, the God of the spirits of all
flesh," etc. What sense would the language
make if we should understand the word
* "Quest. of Ages," pp. 18, 19. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  125
spirits here to mean "the motions and emotions" of all flesh? Zechariah speaks of God
as Him that "formeth the spirit of man within
him." * Shall we read the passage thus:
"That formeth'the motions and emotions'
of man within him"?  And in the passage
under examination, if the word ru(h means
motion, what word in the sentence expresses
the thing that moves?
There is no mistaking the real meaning of
the passage. Man, it teaches us, is a complex
being. His body is formed from the earth,
and at death the dust-the material organism
-returns to the earth as it was. But his
soul is not formed of dust-it is not matter,
but spirit-and, therefore, it does not go to the
earth, but to God who gave it. The soul,
consequently, survives the body, and is introduced by death into another state of conscious existence.
2. Our Saviour taught the same doctrine
in language too clear to be misunderstood;
Zech. xii. 1. 
126    IIMMORTALITY OF TIIE SOUL.
when  sending forth his disciples on their
perilous mission, he said to them: "Fear not
them which kill the body, but are not able to
kill the soul." * The doctrine we are opposing is that the soul dies with the body, being
incapable of a conscious existence without it.
If this be true, it is certain that he who kills
the body does by that very act kill the soul
also. He kills the soutl as truly as he kills the
body. But our Lord teaches that, although
men may kill the body, they cannot kil] the
soul.   It is therefore certain that the soul
survives the body: death merely severs the
tie that binds soul and body together, and
the soul still lives.
Hiere, again, we have the usual resort to unsound criticism.  "We  must take into consideration," says one writer, "that the word
here rendered soul is pseuche, a word forty
times renrdered life in the New Testament." t
And so he would translate it here. The pas
* Matt. x. 28.
t " Mortal or Immortal," pp.'41, 42. 
IMMIORTALITY OF THE SOUL.   127
sage would then read thus: "Fear not them
which kill the body, but are not able to kill
the life." This sounds strangely. To kill is
to destroy life, and how the body could be
killed and the life remaiii unharmed is not
quite clear, to say nothing of the very extraordinary phrase, to kill life.  But our author
interprets the passage thus: " We are not to
fear them which can kill the body, or can deprive 11us of our brief space of life here, but
cannot touch that life which is hid( with Christ
in God which will be bestowed upon us when
our great Lifegiver shall appear"-that is,
at the resurrection.  According to this interpretation, the word body signifies "our brief
space of life here"-a  very extraordinary
meaning certainly-and the word life or soul
signifies the life which the body or person
will have when raised from the dead at a
future period-  also a most extraordinary
meaning.  IIe refers, in justification of his
most extraordinary criticism, to ~1att. x. 39:
"He that findeth his life shall lose it; and
11* 
128   IMMORTALITY OF TIHE SOUL.
he that loseth his life for my sake shall find
it." But here the antithesis is between life
and life, making it obvious that the present
life is meant in the one case and the future
life in the other. But in the passage before
us the antithesis is not between life and life,
but between soul and body. This manifestly
incorrect interpretation is exposed by another
writer of the same faith thus: "And Christ
speaks of man as able to kill the body, but
not the soul (Matt. x. 28; Luke xii. 5),
where the use of the word life instead of soul
explains nothing, for in the death of the
body the life is, in fact, destroyed.  Nor will
it meet the difficulty to say that man can destroy the life only temporarily, while God
can destroy it eternally, for the same is true
of the body, and the words of Christ make
the distinction, not between the temporary
and the eternal, but between the body and
the soul. lNor can the word here rendered
soul be taken as referring to the future, eternal life of the believer, as when it is said that 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.   129
his'life is hid with Christ in God,' for this
sense of the word life is altogether different,
as the fact of life and the principle of life are
different ideas," * etc.
It is certain, then, that the soul does not
die with the body, but continues to live. It
is not unconscious between death and the resurrection.   It lives in a happy or an unhappy state.
3. It is certain that the Apostle Paul believed that the soul may  live out of the
body. Speaking of the wonderful revelations
vouchsafed to him, he says: "I knew a man
in Christ above fourteen years ago (whether
in the body, I cannot tell; whether out of
the body, I.cannot tell: God knoweth); such
a one caught up to the third heaven.   And
I knew such a manl (whether in the body or
out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth),
how that he was caught up into Paradise,
and heard unspeakable words which it is not
lawful for a man to utter." t  Paul knew
* "Debt and Grace," p. 2o2.    t 2 Cor. xii. 2, 3, 
130   IMMORTALITY OF TIE SOUL.
that he had been caught up to heaven, where
he heard unspeakable words, but he did not
know whether he was taken up soul and
body, or whether his soul was, for the time,
separated from the body. Now, if he had
believed, with the annihilationists, that the
soul can have no conscious existence out of
the body, he could have had no doubt on the
subject. It is certain, therefore, that he was
a believer in the immortality of the soul.
But it is objected that, according to this
view, Paul must have died and had a resurrection. Suppose it was so: did not Lazarus
die and rise again?  But it cannot be proved
that the soul may not be separated from the
body temporarily without the extinction of
the natural life.  The objection, then, is without force.  We are told, indeed, that "all the
apostle mleans by the phrase'out of the body'
is merely to be in vision," * but such all assertion, made in utter disregard of the language of the apostle, is worthy of notice only
* "Mortal or Immortal," t. 62. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.   131
as it shows how glaringly the Scriptures must
be perverted in the advocacy of the doctrine
of the mortality of the soul. Others had
visions, but were never said to be out of
the body.
4. Whilst the doctrine is taught, with entire clearness, that the souls of all men live
after the death of their bodies, the state of
the righteous after death is more frequently
brought to view.  We propose now to examine what we find in the New Testament
on this point.
1st. Three of the evangelists record the
appearance of Moses and Elias on the Mount
of Transfiguration with our Lord. Luke records it thus. "And behold, there talked with
him two men, which were Moses and Elias,
who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease, which he should accomplish at Jerusalem." * Neither of the narratives leaves
any ground to doubt the actual presence of
those two servants of God in the mount.
Luke ix. 30, 31 
132   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
Elias was translated, body and soul, to heaven, but Moses died and his body was buried,
yet the appearance of both is recorded, as if
there were nothing more remarkable in the
one case than in the other. It is clear, then,
that Moses lived in heaven after the death
of his body. Dr. Clarke, it is true, expressed
the opinion that "the body of Moses was
probably raised again as a pledge of the
resurrection," but since there is not a word
in the Bible countenancing the idea, it cannot
be probable. There is really no more difficulty about the appearance of Moses than
about the appearance of angels, of which we
so often read in both the Old and New Testaments; for the angels are "all ministering
spirits," as the saints are "the spirits of just
men made perfect."
2d. The answer of our Lord to the prayer
of the dying thief establishes the same doctrinle.  "Lord, remember me," he prayed,
"when  thou  comest into  thy kingdom."
The answer was: "Verily I'say unto thee, 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  133
To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." *
We need not stop to inquire whether in this
passage Paradise means heaven. It was certainly a place of happiness, and to that place
the soul of the dying thief was to go immediately after death. His body died, and his
soul entered Paradise. But there is a difficulty, we are told, "that lies like a mountain
barrier" in the way of this understanding of
our Saviour's language, viz.: that he said,
three days after he made this promise, that
he had not yet ascended to the Father. John
xx. 17. This difficulty wholly disappears
when we remember that, although the human
nature of Christ is finite, and might not have
ascended to heaven on that day, yet his divine
nature is infinite, and was in heaven. There
is no more difficulty, even supposing the objector rightly understands John xx. 17, than
there is in the language of our Lord in John
iii. 13: "And no man hath ascended up to
heaven, but he that came down from heaven,
* Luke xxiii. 43. 
134    I3IMORTALITY OF THIE SOUL.
even the Son of man, which is in heaven."
Hle here claims to be at the same moment
both on earth and in heaven.
An attempt is made to evade the force of
the argument by a chlange in the punctuation,
so as to make our Saviour's language read
thus: " Verily I say unto thee to-day, Thout
shalt be with me in Paradise." The meaning
then would be, not that the thief would be
with him in Paradise on that day, but "I today say unto thee," etc.  Whilst it is, of
course, admitted that our punctuation is not
of authority, yet we do maintain that the
order in which the words stand proves the
punctuation correct.  No  reason, it is believed, can be given to justify the change in
the punctuation. Reference is made to Zech.
ix. 12 as containing "an expression exactly
parallel with that in Luke." It reads thus:
"Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners
of hope: even to-day do I declare that I will
render double unto thee." But this is not a
parallel case at all, for here the emphatic ex 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.   135
pression to-day precedes the phrase I declare,
and no one can mistake the meaning.   But
in the answer of our Lord to the thief, the
word to-day does not precede but follows
the words "I say unto thee," thus giving
a totally different sense. The objector says:
" Transposing this sentence without altering
the sense, and we have phraseology simi]ar
to that of Luke xxiii. 43." * But you cannot transpose the sentence without altering
the sense, for the order of the words determines the sense. So that, whilst all agree as
to the meaning of the phraseology in Zech.
ix. 12, no respectable commentator or critic,
so far as we know, has understood our Lord's
language in the same way.   The  learned
Quinoel, referring to the interpretation we
are opposing, says it renders the sentence
-satis8frigida, sufficiently frigid, and "the very
order of the words and the formula, Verily
I say unto thee, repudiate this conjecture." t
* "Mortal or Immortal," pp. 5457.
t "Ita vero procederet bententia satis frigida, et ipse
12 
136   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
All such attempts to force an unnatural meaning upon the -language of Jesus only serve to
confirm the obvious interpretation. This one
passage, were there no other, is fatal to the
doctrine of the mortality and unconscious
sleep of the soul, as it is cheering to the
heart of the true believer.
3d. The dying prayer of Stephen, the first
Christian martyr, is a further refutation of
the doctrines under consideration, and a further confirmation of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul.   "And they stoned
Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit."* Hils body was
about to return to the earth as it was; his
spirit he committed into the hands of that
verborum ordo, atque formula abuv 2?yw cot, lianc conjecturam repudiant." In loco.
"But the sublime promise of Christ: -,uO  Z7yco cot,
~,-pov Fuerr' ilzov" ac,v r) irapadetao, verily I say unto thee,
to-day, etc., has been superficialized to such a degree by
some that they render the words thus:'I to-day' say
unto thee," etc.-Olshauser:
* Acts viL 59., 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL   137
Saviour for whose truth and glory he was
laying down his life. There could be no
meaning in this dying prayer if his spirit
was about to die with the body, and both to
sleep in "the dust till the resurrection."
But this clear and beautiful petition, like
so many other inspired utterances, is to be
perverted and obscured by reckless criticism.
The word pneuma sometimes, though rarely,
signifies "the principle of life residing in the
breath," and this, we are told, is what Stephen commended  to God, to be bestowed
upon him again.  His life was about to become extinct, and yet we are to believe that
he asked Jesus to receive that which would no
longer exist! And then the prayer, "Receive my spirit," means,  "Raise my  body,
my person, to life at the time of the resurrection!"  Is it really necessary to expose
such a perversion?  "But if the soul lives
right along in one uninterrupted course of
existence, where," it is asked, " would be the
propriety of committing it, at the hour of 
138   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
death, into the hands of our Maker any more
than at any other time?"* Suppose there
were no more propriety in committing the
soul to God at the hour of death than at
any other time, it will scarcely be pretended
that there is any less propriety in so doing at
so solemn a moment than at any other.  Now,
since there is eminent propriety in committing one's self to God's keeping at all times,
there surely was eminent propriety in Stephen's doing so when dying. But death is
the close of man's probation, and "after
death the judgment." Is it not pre-eminently
proper that the dying servant of God, about
to close his probation and to render to God
an account of the deeds done in the body,
should commit his soul to that Saviour in
whom he trusts, and who only can secure to
him an entrance into heaven? And is not
such a prayer the expression of the earnest
longing of the dying believer to go and be
with his Lord and Saviour, "whom having
* "Mortal and Immortal," pp. 57, 58. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  139
not seen he loves"? Did not our Saviour
himself, in the very same language, commit
his spirit, when he was dying, into the hands
of his Father?   And will it be pretended
that his spirit did not continue to live after
the death of his body?
It is, then, the inestimable privilege of the
believer, when flesh and heart fail, to commit his soul to Him who is the strength of his
heart and his portion for ever. It is a precious truth, worth more than all the treasures
of earth, that Jesus does receive to himself
the souls of his people when they are no
longer in the body. How many thousands
have sweetly fallen asleep in Christ with this
prayer on their lips!
4th. Such was the confidence of the apostles
and primitive Christians that immediately
after death they would be happy in the presence of their Saviour that they were not
only willing but anxious to die.   "Therefore," says Paul, "we are always confident,
knowing that whilst we are at home in the
' 12* 
140   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
body we are absent from the Lord. (For we
walk by faith, not by sight.) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent
from the body, and to be present with the
Lord." * The apostle scarcely regarded his
body as part of himself, much less as essential
to his conscious existence. He speaks of being at home in the body, or absent from it,
as one would speak of being in or out of his
house. In the same manner Peter speaks
of his body as "this tabernacle," which he
must soon lay aside.t Such language could
never have been used by men who believed
either that man is a mere material organism,
or that the soul cannot survive separation
from the body, or exist consciously in a separate state.
Believers, as Paul here teaches, enjoy "the
earnest of the Spirit." In consequence of
this, they have an abiding confidence of acceptance with God. And knowing that, so
long as they continue in the body, they can     * 2 Cor. v. 6-8.     t 2 Peter i. 14. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  141
not hope to enjoy the immediate and blissful
presence of their Redeemer and God, they
prefer to leave the body, assured that immediately after death they will be present
with him.  There  is no ambiguity in the
apostle's language.  It is impossible to doubt,
if we are willing to take the plain meaning
of the clearest language, that the death of
believers-their absence from the body-introduces them immediately into the presenlce of God, where  "there is fifluess of
joy."
On reading such language one would suppose that no believer in the inspiration of
the Scriptures would ever doubt that the soul
lives after the death of the body, and that
the soul of the believer enjoys a blessed existence. But it is said, by way of objection,
that when Paul says he is willing rather to
be absent from the body, and to be present
with the Lord, "it is certain that his thoughts
do not linger in the intermediate state, as if
that were to be much prized. Hle imme 
142   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
diately speaks of the scene of judgment."*
Is it true, then, that we are to judge of the
estimate an inspired writer places upon any
of the blessings of redemption by the number of words or sentences he writes about
them in any particular chapter? MWhy (lid not
this writer conclude that the apostle did not
regard " the scene of judgment" as a matter
of much importance because he immediately
passes to other subjects? The question, however, is not how much, comparatively, the apostle prized the intermediate state, but what he
meant by being absent from the body, and present with the Lord. This the writerjust quoted
interprets thus: "The phrase,' To be absent
from thie body,' may therefore denote, not the
happiness of a disembodied state, but a release from the suffering and dying body,
either to'sleep in Jesus,' or to be present
with Christ in the glorified body of the resurrection." Let us examine this interpretation.
* "Debt and Grace," pp. 255, 256. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.   143
1. In the first place, the writer himself is
evidently in doubt respecting the meaning of
the language he is trying to interpret for the
instruction of his readers. He does not pretend to tell us what the apostle does mean,
but only what he may mean. As remarked
in a preceding part of this work, this method
of argument, if such it may be called, is
eminently characteristic of the advocates of
the mortality of the soul. There are a number of passages of Scripture which have been
almost universally understood by the ablest
interpreters, and by the wisest and best men,
to teach the immortality of the soul. If the
doctrine is not true, these passages have been
greatly misunderstood. They certainly have
some meaning. We ask earnestly, What do
they mean?  We are answered by these men
of extraordinary illumination, who undertake
to revolutionize the faith of the Church of
Christ, that they may mean this, or they may
mean that. But we are not satisfied with
such answers respecting language which seems 
144   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
plain and treats of a subject of absorbing
interest. We ask not what meaning may
be forced upon it, but what does it mean?
The phrases "absent from the body" and
"'present with the Lord" cannot be so incomprehensible that sincere inquirers for the
truth can only conjecture what they may
mean. This method of dealing with such
texts is one of the evidences that these men
are fighting against truth instead of bringing
it to light.
2. The language of Paul, we are told, may
mean either of two things as wide apart as
the poles. It may, first, mean a release from
the suffering and dying body to sleep in Jesus
-that-is, to lie in a state of death or unconsciousness. If this is the meaning, then the
apostle's desire was simply to escape from
bodily suffering, and for this end he would
gladly pass into an unconscious state, and for
the time cease to be. The sentiment is not
only unchristian, but unmanly and degrading; and Paul could no more have uttered 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.   145
it than he could have committed suicide.
Moreover, it is a desire which no human being ever felt, unless under extreme distress
or in utter despair.  But Paul was not only
doing a great work for Christ and for the
salvation of his fellow-men, but, in spite of
all his trials and tribulations, he enjoyed
great happiness in his work, in communion
with his Saviour and in hope of heaven.
He had even learned to "joy in tribulation."
Why, then, should he long to lie in the grave
in utter unconsciousness? But if being absent from the body was unconscious sleep,
what did he mean by being present with the
Lord  for the two things stand in immediate connection.    Then  absent from  the
body he would be present with the Lord
WVhat does this mean?
Secondly. The apostle's language, we are
told, may mean "to be present with Christ
in the glorified body of the resurrection."
But this sounds strangely. He desired to be
absent fromn the body and to be present in his 
146   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
glorified body.   But it must be very perplexing to determine how he could be absent
from his body and yet be in his body raised
from the grave.
But it really seems like trifling to spend
time in exposing such absurdities. It is as
clear as light that Paul had in his mind two
widely different states in which he might
be-viz., in the body and out of the body.
Whilst living he was in the body; if he
should die he would be out of the body. IHe
preferred to be out of the body.  Why?  Not
because death was in itself a good, or because
a disembodied state is in itself preferable
to the union of soul and body, but because he
had an- intense desire to be "present with
the Lord"-a privilege he could not enjoy
whilst living in the body, but which he would
enjoy so soon as he died and was out of the
body. Thus is the doctrine proved beyond
cavil that the souls of believers are immortal,
and do enjoy a conscious and happy existence
between death and the resurrection. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.   147
5th. In language somewhat different, but
equally unambiguous, Paul teaches the same
doctrine in the Epistle to the Philippians.*
He expresses his earnest desire that Christ
might be magnified in his body, whether by
life or by death, and then he says, "For me to
live is Christ, and to die is gain." To live
would be to the honor of Christ, inasmuch
as his cause would be promoted by his ministry. To die would be gain to himself, inasmuch as he would rest from his labors and
enjoy the blessedness of heaven. Here again
we meet with the kind of criticism so characteristic of the advocates of the mortality
of the soul.  "When  he then adds,'to live
is Christ, and to die is gain,' he may signify
either the gain to the cause of Christ by
the martyrdom which in his person he now
awaited, or his own greater reward as a mar tyr in the resurrection." t That is, we are
told that the apostle may mean either of two
totally different things, but what he does
*Phil. i. 20-23.  t "Debt and Grace," pp. 256, 257.
13
i 
148   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
mean we are not informed. But Paul explains his meaning, so that we are not left in
doubt. Hie says: "But if I live in the flesh,
this is the fruit of my labor, yet what I shall
choose, I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to
be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful
for you." Here observe:
1. The question in his mind was between
abiding in the flesh and departing from it.
Not a doubt entered his mind that he might
depart from the body as well as continue in
it.  He evidently did not believe in the doctrine that the soul cannot have a conscious
existence out of the body.
2. His desire to depart from the flesh was
not that he might be relieved from the sufferings he was called to endure. One of the
annihilationist authors tells us that "such
were his present afflictions that any form of
death would be a welcome release." But, as
already remarked, Paul was far from being 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.   149
unhappy. On the contrary, he not only possessed that elevated joy which true religion
never fails to bring to the faithful Christian,
especially in times of trial, but he rejoiced to
see " that the things which happened to him
had fallen out rather unto the furtherance of
the gospel."
3. But his desire to depart was that he
might be with Christ, which he knew to be far
better than anything this earth can afford.
To die would be to him great gain, because
he would be immediately with Christ. But
if it be true that the soul lies in an unconscious state from death to the resurrection,
what would Paul have gained by dying
speedily? How could he have been with
Christ any sooner than if he had lived on
earth a thousand years?  "Measuring the
time absolutely," says one of our annihilationist authors, "he could not, to be sure,
but measuring it by his consciousness (his only
means of measurement), and he could just as
much sooner as what time elapsed' between 
150   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
the penning of that sentence and the day of
his death." * The idea on which these wri
ters insist is, that to one in an unconscious
state the interval between death and the
resurrection, though of a thousand or ten
thousand years' duration, is no more than a
moment.   "The long and dreary interval,
then, between death and the day of judgment (supposing the intermediate state to be
a profound sleep) does not exist at all, except in the imagination. To the party concerned there is no interval whatever, but to
each person (according to this supposition)
the moment of his closing his eyes in death
will be instantly succeeded by the sound of
the last trumpet which shall summon the
dead, even though ages shall have intervened."t All this is doubtless true, and it
would be just the same on the supposition
that a hundred millions of years elapse between death and the resurrection; but it does
* "Mortal or Immortal," p. 65.
t Whateley, "On Future State," pp. 83, 84. 
IMMORTALITY OF TEE SOUL.   151
not at all meet the case. We are trying to
ascertain why the apostle desired to die rat.her than to live longer. The reason he assigns is, that he desired to be with Christ.
Beyond a question, then, he expected to be
with Christ sooner if he died sooner.   He
expected to be with Christ as soon as he departed from the flesh. But according to the
doctrine we are opposing, he would be with
Christ just as soon if he lived on earth till
the end of time as if he died immediately.
Now, let us see what, according to this doctrine, would have been Paul's gain by an
early death. Let us suppose that, in accord-.
ance with his desire, he had died twenty years
sooner than-in the course of nature he must
have died. What would he have gained?
He would not have been one moment sooner
with Christ, the object of his heart's desire.
What, then, could he have gained? He
would have gained twenty years of unconsciousnes!  This would have been precisely
his gain, and the whole of it. What would
13* 
152   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
he have lost? Hie would have lost all his
Christian usefulness and all his elevated
Christian enjoyment during that period. So
that, instead of the earnest desire of a holy
man to be with his Saviour, where he could
serve him in perfect holiness and enjoy his
presence, we have the longing of a man weary
of his work and impatient of his trials to
pass into a state of insensibility! Can any
real Christian, looking at the matter fairly,
bring himself to believe that such is the
meaning of Paul's language?
Away with all such attempts to wrest the
plain language of inspiration from its obvious
meaning, and thus to wrest from the believer
his glorious hopes! Paul knew that he would
be with Christ in glory as soon as he left
the body. Therefore it was that he preferred to depart. The doctrine is, therefore,
true that the soul, instead of dying with the
body, passes into another state of conscious
existence, and the souls of believers go to
their Redeemer. 
CHAPTER VI.
OPPOSING ARGUMENTS CONSIDERED.
()NE  of the most plausible arguments
in favor of the doctrine of the unconsciousness of the soul between death and the
resurrection is the fact that in the Scriptures
death is represented as a sleep. This argument is urged by Archbishop W       hateley, who
says: "The style in which the sacred writers
usually speak of the deceased is as of persons who are asleep." But this argument
seems to us to prove just the reverse of that
wh ich  it is adduced t         o      substantiate; for
whilst it is true that in sleep the senses are
closed and the body i          s       almost unconscious,
this is by no means true of the soul. As we
have seen in a preceding part of this work,
there is no evidence that at any moment
during the deepest sleep it is inactive or un                                     153 
154   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
conscious, and we do know that very often
it is intensely active and its passions and
emotions are profoundly stirred. There are
examples of persons having solved mathematical problems whilst asleep which they
could not solve when awake. Others have
composed music during sleep. Indeed, so
far is it from being true that the soul is unconscious in sleep, that God has chosen to
make to his servants and to others some of
his most important revelations in their dreams.
The cases of Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar
are in point, and it was by a warning conveyed in a dream  that the infant Saviour
escaped the rage of Herod.    "The  angel
of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream,
saying, Arise, and take the young child and
his mother and flee into Egypt, and be thou
there until I bring thee word; for Herod
will seek the young child to destroy him."
Again, after the death of Herod, the angel
appeared in a dream and bade Joseph return into the land of Israel. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.   155
But whilst the soul is evidently always
active in sleep, and often most intensely active, it is true that it acts independently of
the senses and the bodily organs. It sees
without the eyes, hears without the ears,
speaks without the tongue. Surely this activity, this intense consciousness of the soul,
during the hours of sleep, can afford no proof
of that blank unconsciousness, the absolute
death of the soul, for which the advocates of
its mortality contend. On the contrary, the
clearest evidence is thus afforded that it can
live and act without the use of the bodily
organs. If, then, the inspired writers understood death to be the total unconsciousness
of the body, whilst the soul continues conscious and active, they could not employ a
more suggestive figure than  sleep.   Those
lines of Young are not only fine poetry, but,
like so many of his verses, contain an unanswerable argument:
"'Tis past conjecture, all things rise in proof;
While o'er my limbs sleep's soft dominion'spread, 
156   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
What though my soul fantastic measures trod
O'er fairy fields, or mourn'd along the gloom
Of pathless woods, or, down the craggy steep
Hurl'd headlong, swam with pain the mantled pool,
Or scal'd the cliff, or danc'd on hollow winds,
With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain?
Her ceaseless flight, though devious, speaks her nature
Of subtler essence than the trodden clod,
Active, aerial, tow'ring, unconfin'd,
Unfetter'd with her gross companion's fall.
E'en silent night proclaims my soul immortal,
E'en silent night proclaims eternal day.
For human weal heaven husbands all events:
Dull sleep instructs, nor sport vain dreams in vain."
Death is represented as a sleep, doubtless,
because it is not the destruction of the person
for even a temporary period, the soul still
living and acting, and because even the death
of the body is to be temporary. The period
of death is but a night; God will, in due time,
awaken the slumbering dust.  "Our friend
Lazarus sleepeth," said Jesus, "but I go, that
I may awake him out of sleep." And so
Daniel says of all the dead: "And many of 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  157
them (or the multitude of them) that sleep in
the dust of the earth shall awake."
The two great events, the resurrection and
a general judgment, it is well remarked, are
"fixed facts."  From  these two great facts
two arguments are offered to prove that the
soul dies with the body.
1. The first argument is stated thus:
"WThat need is there of a resurrection if
the man proper ceases not to exist at death,
but lives on in a more enlarged and perfect
sphere of consciousness and activity? If the
body is but a trammel, a clog, to the operations of the soul, what need that it should
come back and gather up its scattered particles from the silent tomb?" * This argument,
if it deserves the name, is easily answered.
In the first place, the body is not a mere
trammel to the soul, a clog to its operations,
but an organism without which its peculiar
mission in this world could not be accomplished. It becomes a clog only as it is
* "Mortal or Immortal," p. 84. 
158    IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
abused by unlawful indulgence, or as its
powers decay under the sentence of death.
In the second place, though the souls of
the righteous do rise at death to a higher
sphere of conscious activity, yet their bodies,
as raised from the dead, may, and doubtless
will, add greatly to their happiness and fit
them for their peculiar mission in a brighter
world.  If it were admitted that since the
introduction of sin and death into the world
the body has become a clog to the soul, it
would not follow that when purified and
refined by the power of God at the resurrection, it will continue to be so. "It is
sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is
sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is
sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual
body."  "For this corruptible must put on
incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." *  For Jesus Christ "shall change
our vile body, that it may be fashioned like
unto his glorious body, according to the work             * 1 Cor. xv. 42-44, 53. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.   159
ing whereby he is able even to subdue all
things unto himself." *  Let it be admitted
that "our vile l)ody" is a clog to the soul
does it follow  that our glorious body will
be so?  As much more refined than the present body as light is more refined than the
earth on which we tread, no longer possessiIng
ensnaring appetites, no longer subject to disease or decay, it will be a tabernacle suited
to the work and the enjoyments of the sanctified spirit. Therefore the saints wait for
"the redemption of their bod(ly." t
Thus, moreover, it will appear that sin
hlas triumphed over no part of man-that the
whole man, body and soul, has been rescued
by the Redeemer from its iron grasp.  "So
when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on
immortality, then shall be brought to pass
the saying that is written, Death is swallowed
up in victory.  O Death, whtere is thy sting?
O Grave, where is thy victory?"I
* Phil. iii. 21. t Romn. viii. 23. + 1 Cor. xv. 54, 55.
14 
160   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
Having answered the argument sought to
be derived from the resurrection against the
immortality of the soul, we nlow derive from
this same doctrine an argument  of great
weight in favor of its immortality, viz.: that
although the person is frequently said to die
and to rise from the dead, yet the inspired
writers repeatedly explain that it is only the
body, not the soul, that is to be raised from
the dead.   Thus it is said that at the resurrection of our Lord "the graves were opened,
many dead BOD)IES of the saints which slept
arose, and came out of the graves."* Paul
says: "If the Spirit of HIim that raised up
Jesus from the dead dwell ill you, He that
raised up Christ from the dead shall also
quicken your MIOPTAL BODIES by his Spirit
that dwelleth in you."t And again: "Who
shall change our VILE BODY, that it may be
fashioned like unto his glorious body."I Now,
this language is perfectly intelligible and consistent on the supposition that the soul sur * Matt. xxvii. 52. t Rom. viii. 11.' Phil. iii. 21. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.   161
vives the body, or passes into another state
of conscious existence, but it is utterly unaccountable on the supposition that the
whole man, soul and body, lies in the grave,
and is raised from the dead. The Scriptures
do constantly speak of both the soul and the
body with reference to death and the future
state, and they speak distinctly of the resurrection of the body, but in not all instance do
they mention the resurrection of the soul.
Why is this? It is the body, not the soul,
that is to be quickened; it is the body, not
the soul, that is to be fashioned like unto the
glorified body of Christ.  The reason is obvious: it is the body, not the soul, that dies.
2. The argument for the mortality of the
soul derived from the general judgment is
stated thus: "What propriety can there be
in a general judgment at the last day, if those
who pass from this state of existence enter
immediately at death into happiness or misery,
accordingly as their characters have been
good or bad? Is there possibility of nmis 
162   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
take in the decision passed upon some at death,
and is it perhaps the case that some have
been unjustly tormented in hell and others
unworthily reveling in the bliss of heaven
for ages past, so that there must needs be a
general assize on the whole human race to
correct these momentous errors of former
decisions?  Such a view reflects on the character of the divine government."* This
argument is founded on the supposition that
a general judgment is necessary in order that
God the Judge may ascertain accurately the
true characters of individuals and assign
them their proper place of happiness or
punishment. But this is absurd. And may
we not ask, if this is the true view, why there
should be a general judgment at all, since it
is certain that the all-wise Judge knows as
well before as afterward the true character
of every human being?
But suppose the general judgment designed
to vindicate the divine administration of the
" Mortal or Immortal," pp.'84, 85. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  163
affairs of this world before the intelligent
universe, to glorify, in the highest degree,
the Triune God, and to make  a profound
and happy moral impression upon men and
angels. Such an obl)ject would constitute the
reason why it is to occur at the end of the
world, when the great plan shall have been
completed and the grand results could he
made manifest.  Then, those parts of the diville procedure which have been too deep
and too high for the comprehension of the
wisest and best men, and which have led
wicked men to blaspheme the name of God,
will shine forth to the admiring joy of saints
and angels, and to the confusion of the ungodly.
This is the view constantly set forth in
the Scriptures. The Apostle Paul teaches
that the plan of salvation is developed
" to the intent that now unto the princil)alities and  powers in heavenly places might
be  known,  by  the  church, the  manifold
wisdom  of God, according  to the eternal
14* 
164   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus
our Lord." * But there are many things in
this wonderful plan which, to the angels to
whom the apostle refers, are yet profoundly
mysterious, and which they cannot comprehend, and "the manifold wisdom" of which
they cannot see till it shall be completed.
"Which things," says Peter, "the angels desire to look into." t  Therefore the Psalmist,
speaking of the general judgment, says: " He
shall call to the heavens from above, and to
the earth, that he may judge his people.
Gather my saints together unto me, those
that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. And the heavens shall declare his
righteousness, for God is judge himself." I
He issues his summons to the inhabitants
of heaven and earth to witness the solemn
scene, that the heavens may declare his righteousness.  Accordingly, we read that "when
the Sonl of man shall come in his glory," the
holy angels shall come with him, to witness
Eph. iii. 9-11.    t 1 Pet. i. 12.'   1 Ps. 1. 4-6. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  165
the final adjudication.* And Paul tells us
that he "shall be revealed from heaven with
his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking
vengeance onl them that know not God, and
that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ," and that "he shall come to be glori
fied ill his saints, and to be admired in all
tlemn that believe.d t
Ill no part of the Scriptures do we find
the absurd idea that the general judgment
is designed to enable God to determine the
characters of men, or even to enable men to
know their own characters.  It is designed
to vindicate the divine administration, and
to make known to the intelligent universe
the manifold wisdom of God in the plan  f
salvation. The doctrine of a general judgment, therefore, affords not the slightest evidence of the mortality of the soul.
A third argument, drawn from these two
doctrines, and much insisted on, is that it is
at the resurrection, not before, that the saints
* Matt. xxv. 31, 32    I 2 Thess.'i. 7-10. 
166   IMMORTALITY OF TIHE SOUL.
are to receive their reward. For example,
those who are kind to the poor are to be
recompensed "at the resurrection of the just."
Again, "And when the chief Shepherd shall
appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that
fadeth not away." Now, it is true that the
saints of God are taught to look to the morning of the resurrection as the period when,
by the deliverance of their bodies from death,
their redemption will be completed; and it is
true that it is when the whole man, soul and
body, shall stand before God, that Jesus Christ
will acknowledge his redeemed ones before
his Father and the holy angels, and bestow
upon them their full reward. That will be
their coronation day. But to infer from all
this that between death and the resurrection
the soul is in an unconscious state is most
illogical. The purposes to be answered by
the general judgment, as already explained,
require that the day of judgment should be
the period when the reward of the righteous 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  167
will be announced and the sentence of the
wicked proclaimed.
That the soul dies with the body is demonstrated, it is said, because Paul "declares
that unless he (man) comes forth again from
the grave he is perished, that is the end of
him, he is irrecoverably and for ever gone."
But the apostle says no such thing. He is
proving the fact that Christ is risen from
the dead, and he argues thus: "For if the
dead rise not, then is not Christ raised, and
if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye
are yet in your sins. Then they also which
are fallen asleep in Christ are perished."*
The argument is this: All men are sinners,
and therefore they are under the curse of the
broken law.  Now, if Christ is not risen, this
fact proves that he is not the Saviour of men.
Consequently, his disciples are yet in their
sins, their faith being vain, and those of
them who have died, died in their sins, and
have perished under the curse.  But the ob               I 1 Cor. xv. 16-18. 
168   IMMORTALITY OF THiE SOUL.
jector  assumes that the  word  "perished"
means annihilation; for if it means, as generally understood, endless punishment, it affords no evidence whatever in favor of the
mortality of the soul. One of the ablest
living critics explains the apostle's language
thus: "Perdition, according to Scripture, is
not annihilation, but everlasting misery and
sin. It is the loss of holiness and happiness
for ever.   If Christ did not rise for the
justification of those who died in him, they
found no advocate at the bar of God, and
have incurred the fate of those who perish
in their sins." *  The meaning of this important word (perished) will be carefully considered- in the course of this discussion.
One of the most plausible arguments for
the mortality of the soul is an inference fromr
the language of Paul to the Thessalonians:
"But I would not have you to be ignorant,
brethren, concerning them which are asleep,
that ye sorrow not, even as others whichli
* Dr. Hodge in loco. 
IM'MORTALITY OF THE SOUL.   169
have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus
died and rose again, even so them also which
sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." *
Paul, it is urged, comforted the Thessalonian
Christians, not with the assurance that their
deceased friends were already in heaven, but
that they would rise from the dead, and then
be for ever with the Lord. But "popular
ministers," it is said, do not comfort mourners in this way, but by telling them their
friends are now in glory. The inference is
that Paul did not believe that deceased Christians do enjoy a happy existence before the
resurrection. To all of which we answer:
1. That we never find the inspired writers
comforting believers, as do the annihilationists, by assuring them that to their deceased
friends and to themselves the interval between
death and the resurrection, however long it
may really be, will appear but a moment.
Now, if the inference is legitimate that they
did not believe what is called "the popular
* 1 Thess. iv. 13, 14. 
170   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
doctrine" because they did not comfort
mourners in the way adopted by "the popular preachers," may we not as justly conclude
that they did not believe the annihilationist
doctrine because they did not comfort mourners as do annihilationists?  Wise men never
employ arguments against the faith of others
which are fatal to their own.
2. In the apostolic age the two doctrines,
the immortality of the soul and the resurrection, were close cdmpanions.  There were,
indeed, those amongst the Gentiles who knew
nothing of the resurrection who believed the
soul immnortal, for the doctrine of the resurrection is purely a doctrine of Revelation,
but we -lnow of none who believed the doctrine of the resurrection of the body who
denied the immortality of the soul.  "For,"
says Luke, "the Sadducees say that there is
no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit, but
the Pharisees confess both." * Each of these
Jewish sects was consistent with itself. The
* Acts xxiii. 8. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  171
Sadducees were materialists. Denying the
immortality of the soul, they also denied the
resurrection of the body, and they likewise
denied the existence of disembodied spirits.
The Pharisees, holding to the inmmortality of
the soul, believed also the resurrection of the
body, and they admitted the existence of
spirits. Annihilationists are chargeable with
the inconsistency of attempting to separate
these kindred doctrines.
Such being the forms of religious belief
in the days of Christ and his apostles, it
is evident that when the doctrine of the
resurrection was proved the doctrine of
the immortality of the soul followed of
course.
And  now  we  can see the force of our
Lord's refutation of the Sadducees: "But as
touching the resurrection of the dead, have
ye not read that which was spoken unto you
by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham,
and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?
God is not the God of the dead, but of the
15 
172   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUIJL.
living." *  This argument demonstrated that,
though the bodies of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob had long been dead, they themselves
were living. It put the Sadducees to silence.
Why?  They denied two great doctrines rf
Revelation, viz.: the immortality of the soul
and the resurrection of the body, and their
rejection of the latter doctrine was a consr,
quence of their disbelief of the former. Jesus
Christ knew this, and therefore he struck at
the proton pseudos- the radical error.  He
knew that if they were convinced of the
immortality of the soul, they would find no
difficulty in admitting the resurrection of the
dead. He therefore demonstrated the immortality of the soul by proving that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were yet alive. Thus
the conclusiveness of his argument is clear,
and we are not under the necessity, as the
annihilatignists are, of forcing upon his language a most unnatural meaning, viz.: that
God is the God of those who are dead, but
* Matt. xxii. 31, 32. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  173
not the God of "those who are irrecoverably
and eternally dead."
Now, then, we can see why Paul comforted
believers concerning their departed friends by
pointing them to the resurrection, for this
doctrine implied the immortality of the soul.
!No one who believed the former doctrine
denied the latter.  If those who had fallen
asleep in Christ were to rise again, it followed that their souls were now happy with
him.  The apostle, therefore, fixed their minds
upon the completion of their redemption,
the final triumph, when the whole redeemed
family, those who had died and those who
would be alive at the resurrection, would
ascend together and be for ever with the
Lord.  The  inference, therefore, that  the
apostle held that the soul dies with the body
is wholly unwarranted. 
CHAPTI'ER VII.
THE FINAL DESTINY OF THE WICKED.
HAT  do the Scriptures teach respecting
the final destiny of the wicked?
We now come to the last question proposed for discussion.   On  two points the
annihilationists agree with us, viz.: 1. That
the wicked as well as the righteous will be
raised from the dead. 2. That after being
raised the righteous will receive their reward
and the wicked will endure the penalty due
to their sins. But they maintain what we
deny-that the punishment of the wicked
will be annihilation, or will end in annihilation.
That "the wages of sin is death" Paul
distinctly teaches.* Whether death means
* Rm. vi. 23.
174 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  175
the extinction of being, or the extinction of hope
and consequent endless suffering, is the question to be determined.  This has been a fruitful theme for abstract reasoning and speculation, respecting which we may say, as Gibbon
says of the speculations of pagan philosophers
concerning the divine nature, that "in the
profound inquiry they displayed the strength
and the weakness of the human understanding." The divine purposes concerning the
righteous and the wicked involve questions
too high and too deep for human reason, and,
with infinite interests at stake, we desire to
plant our feet on a more solid foundation.
Let us, therefore, come directly to the light
of God's word, without wearying our minds
with the speculations, more or less plausible,
by which  men  have undertaken to prove
that moral evil must or nmust not continue
for ever.
In the twenity-fifth chapter of Matthew we
have presented before us by Christ himself
a panoramic view of the general'judgment,
15 * 
176   IMMORTALITY OF THlE SOUL.
and there we learn, in language remarkably
clear, what is to be the destiny both of the
righteous and of the wicked. The Son of
man is to come in his glory, and  all the
holy angels with him.  All nations are to
be gathered before him, and he will separate
them from each other as a shepherd divideth
the sheep from the goats. To the righteous
he will say, "Come, ye blessed of my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from
the foundation of the world." To the wicked
he will say, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into
everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and
his angels."  The final result is announced
thus: "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into
life eternal."
The question respecting the destiny of the
wicked, so far as this passage is concerned,
turns upon the two words, " everlasting punishment."   With  Universalists the controversy relates to the meaning of the word
everlasting. They contend for a limited mean 
IMMORTALITY OF THIE SOUL.   177
ing. Hudson and other annihilationist writers
"waive all argument in behalf of a limited
sense of the word'everlasting,"' though they
do not fail to tell us that "a very strong
case could be made out for such a sense." *
No one denies that the word here translated
everlasting is sometimes used to signify a
limited period, but such a meaning can be
forced on the word here only by the utter
disregard of the rules of language. The same
Greek word which expresses the duration of
the life of the righteous expresses the duration of the punishment of the wicked.  If,
then, the former is unlimited, so is the
latter.
But annihilationists join issue on the word
puni&hment, and the question they raise is
this: "Does it necessarily denote conscious
pain?"' They insist that it means nothing
miore than "eternal privation of being," or
annihilation. "The difficulty, we apprehend,"
says one of them, "arises from confounding
* "Debt and Grace," p. 187. 
178   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
punishment with conscious suffering, whereas
it is not necessarily such. Mark where the
antithesis occurs: it is between life and punishment.... WVe therefore plead for the
plain and literal import of the ternms. L,ife,
then, means life, anid life here is just the opposite of the punishment brought to view." *
Another writer adopts a different exposition.
All those in the scene, he thinks, "are professed Christians-the true and the false, the
genuine and the hypocrites. They are together called'all the nations.' These words
are not ilntended to mean all mankind, but
are designed to be commensurate with the
words in the apostolic commission,'Go ye,
therefore, and disciple all nations.'" Thus
he disposes of the phrase, "all nations." The
ideal meaning of the word kolasin, translated
punishment, he further informs us, "is to take
from, to cut of, and hence to prune or to
cut off unfruitful or worthless branches from
a tree which  is itself a good  tree.  And
* "Mortal or Immortal," p. 94. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.   179
kolazo is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew KAH-RATH, which  means  to cut off
as a branch is cut off, and to cut off by
death, and is used when it is said, "That
soul shall be cut off,''that soul shall be cut
off from Israel.' Even so the false Christians
shall be cut off from the flock of Christ) and
from every pretence to the kingdom, of which
they were ostensible heirs, in common with the
true, and their excision shall not be temporal,
but shall be edernal." *
These writers give us two interpretations
of this important passage. The one makes
the word translated punishmei't mean excision,
the others make it mean privation.  Let us
examine both of these interpretations.
That the word does not mean excision, or
the separation of hypocrites from true believers, is clear from several considerations.
1. It requires a most extraordinary and
arbitrary interpretation of the phrase, "all
nations."  This phrase is indeed "cornmen            * "Quest. of Ages," p. 98..  
180   IMIMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
surate with the words in the apostolic com mission.". But those words mean the same
as those recorded by Mark: "Go ye into all
the world, and preach the gospel to every
creature." The commlissionl embraces all the
world, and so will the general judgment. To
make the phrase, "all nations," mean only
the professing Christians of all nations is a
most unwarrantable perversion of language.
2. If we were to admit that the word
translated punishment sometimes  means  ex cision, it is clear that such is not its mean ing in the passage under consideration. For
although we constantly meet, in the Old Tes tament, with such expressions as, To be cut of
fr'om my people, yet in no instance is it said
that offenders shall go away into excision.
Nor would the expression, eternal excision,
be less extraordinary.  No writer would em ploy such expressions to signify the separation
of unworthy persons from the church. It is
not only an incorrect, but a ridiculous, use of
language.. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  181
3. The word kolasin never has the meaning which this writer attaches to it.  The
verb kolazo sometimes signifies to prune; and
if the church were spoken of, in this view of
the general judgment, as a tree, there might
be some appearance of propriety in resorting
to this meaning. But the scene presented is
that of a king on his throne, summoning
before him his subjects that he may suitably
reward the faithful and inflict merited punishment upon the rebellious. In such a connection no one would think of using a word
signifying pruning. There would be as much
propriety in talking of the pruning or excision of a criminal in court. Dr. Morris tells
us that kolazo is the Greek equivalent of the
Hebrew KAH-RATH, whichl is used when. it
is said, "That soul shall be cut off."  But
the conclusive proof that this'statement is,
incorrect is the fact, which he should have
known, that, often as this' expression occurs
in the law of Moses, the Hebrew word KAHRATH is never translated in the Sel)tuagint 
182   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
by the Greek kolazo.  If the latter were the
equivalent of the former, why was it never
used as the translation of it?
4. The constant and the uniform usage of
the word kolasin proves that it signifies punishmrent in the proper sense of the word.
Hudson, after quoting a number of passages
in the Old Testament and in the Apocryphal
books in which this word occurs, remarks:
"The ethical sense of'punishment,' as distinct from calamity or mere excision, is apparent in all the passages. The same is true
of its usage in the New Testament."  The
verb kolazo occurs in Acts iv. 21, where it is
said, the Jewish council, after threatening the
apostles,-let them go, "finding nothing how
they might punish (kolasontai) them."  It occurs again in 2 Pet. ii. 9, where it is said, the
Lord knoweth how to reserve "the unjust
unto the day of judgment to be punished
(kolazomenou8)."  The noun kolasi8 occurs in
1 John iv. 18, where it is translated torment,
and signifies that suffering which is caused 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  183
by guilty fear. The usage of the word, then,
shows the correctness of our translation. The
word means punishmentt.  The context proves
the same theory. The glorious King comes to
judge and reward his subjects. In order to
this, he divides them into two classes, according to their characters. The righteous
he rewards, the wicked he punishes. And
what else can be intended by the sentence,
"Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting
fire, prepared for the devil and his angels"?
What is the meaning of "eve}rlastingfire" F
There remains but one more question to be
determined in relation to this important passage, viz.: Whether the punishment consists
in endless suffering, or in annihilation. It is
said, the punishment is the antithesis of life,
and therefore must be understood to be annihilation.  This might be true if the word
life here signified merely conscious existence.
In that case the antithesis would be lonexistence or annihilation.  But the word life
is evidently here used, as constantly in the
16 
184   IMMORTALITY OF THIE SOUL.
New  Testament, in the sense of holy and
halppy existence.  The language of our Lord
in John v. 24 makes the meaning  clear:
"Verily I say unto you, He that heareth my
word, and believeth on Him  that sent me,
hath everlasting life, and shall not conme into
condemnation, but is passed from death unto
life." When it is said of the believer that
he is passed from death unto life, the meaning
is not that he has passed from non-existence
to conscious existence, but from a state of sin
and condemnation to a holy, justified state.
He has entered upon a holy and happy life
which shall he endless. If, then, the eternal
life of the righteous is to be a holy and happy
existence, the antithesis of this would be, not
annihilation, but a sinful, unhappy existence.
This meaning of the word kolasin is required by the word everlasting, which qualifies
it. Doubtless, God, if he chose could with
infinite ease annihilate the wicked onl account
of their sins, and annihilation, inflicted on
an immortal being, would certainly be a pun 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.   185
ishment, but in no possible sense could it be
everlasting. Punishment, whether it be of
the nature of privation or of positive suffering, can be inflicted only on a being who is
conscious of it, and it requires no argument
to prove that it cannot continue after the
subject of it has ceased to exist. To say
that it can is to maintain the possibility of
punishing nothing, which is absurd.  Still
clearer, if possible, is it that annihilation,
inflicted upon a mortal being, could not be
everlasting punishment, for it could only
hasten an event which must occur in the
course of nature. Consequently, it could only
deprive him of a limited, not an everlasting,
existence. -The fact that immortality was
offered to him, but not accepted, does not
alter the case, for since he never possessed
immortality, he could not be deprived of it.
The conclusive evidence that we have given
to the phrase "everlasting punishment" its
true meaning is the fact that it must have
been so understood by those to whom our 
1 86   IMMOPTALITY OF THE SOUL.
Lord was speaking.  Amongst the Jews there
were but two views respecting the future state,
the one held by the Sadducees, the other by
the Pharisees. The Sadducees, as we learn
from both Josephus and the New Testament,
believed that the souls of men die with their
bodies, and they rejected the doctrine of the
resurrection.  They were, therefore, annihilationists, though differing materially from those
of our day. The Pharisees believed in the
immortality of the soul, in the resurrection
of the just and the unjust, and in the endless
punishment of the wicked. "They also believe," says Josephus, "that souls have an
immortal vigor in thenm, and that under the
earth there will be rewards or punishments,
according as they have lived virtuously or
viciously in this life, and the latter are to be
detained in an everlasting prison," etc. When,
therefore, our Lord spoke of everlasting punishment to be inflicted on the wicked after
the resurrection, his disciples, unless informed
to the contrary, must have understood him 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  187
to teach the doctrine held by all the Jews
except the Sadducees. If the modern doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked at a
period succeeding the resurrection had ever
been known amongst the Jews, it had certainly disappeared before the advent of Christ.
If, therefore, he had designed to teach it, and
to correct the prevailing belief, he most certainly would not have employed  language
so likely to confirm the existing faith, and
which, on this supposition, has misled ninetynine hundredths of the readers of the New
Testament from that day to this.
That the punishment of the wicked will
not be merely that of p)rivation, "cutting off
from life," but positive suffering, we are distinct]y taught by the Apostle Paul. After
saying that God "will render to every man
according to his deeds" at the day of judgmrnent, he thus describes the destiny of the
righteous and of the wicked respectively:
"To them who by patient continuance inll
well-doing seek for glory and honor and
16  
188   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
immortality, eternal life; but unto them that
are contentious, and do not obey the truth,
but obey unrighteousness, indignation and
wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every
soul that doeth evil."*  The doom  of the
wicked is to be the suffering of the indignation and wrath of God, inflicting tribulation
and anguish. It is certain that these words,
"tribulation and anguish," do express positive suffering. This the apostle declares to
be the penalty the wicked shall suffer, but
not the slightest intimation does he give
either that the penalty is the privation of
conscious existence or that it will terminate
in this. But as he is here expressly teaching
what is-the penalty of sin, he could not have
failed to speak of annihilation if this had
been the penalty.
This doctrine is further proved by our
Saviour's language in John iii. 36: "He
that believeth on the Son hath everlasting
life, and he that believeth not on the Son
* Rom. ii. 7.,10. 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  189
shall not see life, but the wrath of God
abideth on him."  Believers now possess and
shall enjoy eternal life-a life of holiness and
bliss —but unbelievers not only shall not enjoy
eternal life, but instead of this, the wrath of
God shall abide on them.  Now, it is certain
that the wrath of God cannot abide on nothiitg; it cannot, therefore, abide on beings who
no longer exist. Most certainly, then, the
wicked will continue to exist and to suffer
un&er the divine displeasure. But says Hudson, "The state of death was deemed by the
Jews an evil.  And by a natural dramatism,
the subtlety of thoughts ever transcending
the subtlety of words, such a destiny might
be expressed in language which, grammatically taken, implies existence." He acknowledges that our Lord's language, grammatically taken, implies the continued existence
of the wicked; how, then, is the language to
be made to convey a meaning directly the
reverse of its plain, grammatical meaning?
Interpreted according to the established prin 
190   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
ciples of language, it confessedly teaches the
continued existence of the wicked; but we
are to imagine a fiction called "a natural
dramatism," and to suppose that the subtlety
of the thoughts which our Lord was endeavoring to communicate transcends the subtlety of
his language, and then we may suppose that
he meant just the reverse of that which he
said! He said the wicked continue to exist:
he meant that they cease to exist! In the
hands of such critics language ceases to be
the medium of ideas, and becomes a mere
plaything. These gentlemen find no difficulty in giving expression to their faith in
plain, unambiguous language. Could not our
Saviour- do the same?
The doctrine of the endless punishment of
the wicked is further confirmed by the punishment denounced against blasphemy against
the Holy Spirit: "But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never
forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation."  This, we are told, means "a judg 
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  191
ment or condemnation, the effects of which
will be eternal." Agreed. But what are the
effects of condemnation? They are the sufferings to which the. criminals are condemned,
and,  therefore, eternal condemnation must
mean endless sufferings.  Thus "eternal salvation" (Heb. v. 9) is a salvation the happy
effects of which are to be eternally experienced by its subjects.  " Eternal redemption"
(Heb. ix. 12) is a redemption the blissful
fruits of which are to be for ever enjoyed.
"The everlasting gospel" (Rev. xiv. 6) is a
gospel whose blessings are to be for ever possessed.  A "perpetual covenant" (Ex. xxxi.
16) is a covenant designed to be perpetually
in force.  Such is the uniform usage of the
Scriptures.  The penalty of sin might have
been annihilation, but in no possible sense
could such a sentence be called an eternal
condemnation.  One might as well speak of
a stroke of lightning as continuing half a
century, because it killed a child that might
have lived fifty years, as of an eternal con 
192   IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
demnation to annihilation. Such language is
not merely extraordinary, it is unheard of.
There are many other passages of Scripture that might be cited in refutation of the
doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked.
Perhaps some passages to which we have not
referred may be thought to present evidence
quite as strong as those we have quoted.
But we are willing to close the argument at
this point, for we are persuaded that the
evidence we have adduced is abundantly
sufficient to satisfy the unprejudiced, and we
know full well that no language, however
clear or strong, can convince those whose
minds are blinded by prejudice.
The great question, then, which God has
submitted to men, is not whether they will
continue to live or cease to exist, but whether
their future life shall be holy and happy or
sinful and wretched. Depraved and degraded
men may say, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." Or in the vain effort to escape
from the wretchedness which their sins have 
IIMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.  193
brought upon them they may commit suicide,
as so many are doing. But the Creator has
impartedcl to the soul a life which is indestructible. If, as our Saviour declared, the
murderer who kills his victim cannot kill
his soul, neither can the suicide destroy its
life. It is a glorious and a fearful truth
that every human being has entered upon
an existence which is destined to run parallel
with that of God, and through the endless
ages every one must glorify the grace or the
juestice of God   We  must act, then, under
the pressure of eternal motives; and the quest:ion we are settling is, whether we will lay
up treasure in heaven, or treasure up wrath
against the day of wrath. We are obliged
to live, form character and receive reward.
What character we will form, and what shall
be our reward, are the questions we are now
settling.   May  God  give  us  wisdom  to
choose!
The doctrine we have now proved is full
of consolation and joy to the children of 
194   IIMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
God.   They  are no mere material organisms governed by material laws, incapable
alike of virtue or vice, but spirits possessed
of free moral agency, capable of bearing the
image of their glorious Creator. This short
life is not to be followed by a long, dreary
night of unconsciousness, but the putting off
their frail tabernacle will introduce them immediately into the presence of their Saviour,
and into the bliss of heaven. "And I heard
a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write,
Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord
from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that
they may rest from their labors; and their
works do follow them." Rev. xiv. 13.