THE MODE
OF
MAN'S IMMORTALITY:
Or, The When, Where, and How,
OF THE
FUTURE LIFE.
BY REV. T. A. GOODWIN, A.M.,
Author of the " The Perfect Man," and late Editor of " 7he Indiana
Christian Advocate."
"With what body do they come? "-Corinthian Doubter.
" Thou sowest not that body that shall be."-Paul's A nswer.
NEW YORK:
J. B. FORD & COMPANY.
I874.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year x874, by
T. A. GOODWVIN,
tn she Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C.




DEDICATION.
TO THE LOVED ONES OF LIFE WHO ARE WITH THE LORD
THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED,
WITH THE CONFIDENT ASSURANCE THAT, THOUGH UNSEEN, THEY ARE EVER PRESENT, LOVING AND BELOVED
NO LESS BECAUSE THEY HAVE PUT ON IMMORTALITY.




"Men will linger less in the Graveyard if convinced that the dead are elsewhere."-Dr. Townsend.
"Some things that we have read and heard about raising to Immortality the
body, the breaking up of graves, and the upsetting ot tombstones at the material'resurrection,' may be questioned without heresy."-Dr. Daniel Curry.
" Some believe that these bodies shall rise again. Thank God, not I! "-Rev.
Henry Ward Beecker.
"We shall be like HIM, for we shall see him as he is."-St. fohn.




NOTICE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
THE call for a second edition furnishes an opportunity to the author to add a few pages by way of
enlarging upon some points, but chiefly in furnishing
references to acknowledged scholars and teachers
who agree with him on those most severely criticised in the first edition. This is due to a large class
of readers who are not averse to the doctrines taught,
but who want first to know that they are agreeable to
those whom they are willing to follow, before avowing
their assent.:
The most caustic criticism which the first edition
elicited was from an intelligent class of laymen who had
heard of late so little about the resurrection of the
physical body that they supposed the doctrine had been
given up by the better class of divines. Their criticism
was that the book was not called for. Singularly enough,
at the very time that that edition was passing through
the press the MAethodist Quarterly Review for October
1873 was also passing through the press with an elaborate article from an eminent writer of New England to
prove that "the flesh shall be raised;" and numerous
criticisms elicited from the religious press of the country
show that there are yet persons of respectable rank
who still cling to that notion.  So far, therefore, as that
doctrine is mischievous and this work may remove the
error from the Christian Church, the book is timely and
will be useful.
Not the least of the commendations which the first
edition elicited have been numerous testimonials from
those in various walks of life who had been led to look




vi                   NO TICE.
upon death and the grave with horror. The more cheerful, hopeful, trustful, Scriptural views herein taught have
mitigated the grief they had endured in the loss of loved
ones, and removed from their own anticipations all dread
of the cheerless charnel-house.  The writer is quite
content to let those criticise who delight in it, while
such results as these follow the reading of the book by
the millions who have no favorite creed to maintain, but
who wish to drink of the pure waters of the river of life
as they flow from the Word of God. That thousands
will be made better and happier by reading these pages
we firmly believe. None can possibly be made less
useful or less happy.




PREFACE.
THIS little book will fall into the hands of some
persons who will not read it. A glance at the
title-page, and a discovery that the author is not of
their rank, will be sufficient. Being great men themselves, they learn nothing from common men. Besides,
having made up their minds on the subject discussed,
what use?
Others, glancing hastily through it, and discovering
that it does not interpret the Bible just as they do, will
lay it down with very profound contempt, and probably
denounce it as infidel. This is by far the cheapest way
to dispose of it. It is the common resort of imbeciles
and bigots.
The writer once encountered a representative of this
class in the person of a class-leader who had emigrated
from the sand-hills of North Carolina. The shape and
motions of the earth had been mentioned somehow in
a. sermon. Deeply grieved and piously indignant, he
rushed to the Bible to overthrow the doctrine. "The
earth is not round," said he, with an air of triumph.
"See here!'I saw four angels standing on the four
corners of the earth.' How can anything be round
which has four corners? And the earth does not swing
upon nothing. See here!'Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth.' How can
anything swing upon nothing when it has foundations?
Besides that, did not Joshua command the sun to stand
still? How could it stop if it had not been going?"
We could not answer him, for he was ensconced
behind the Bible, and no argument could convince him




viii                PREP  CE.
that any other interpretation than that which he gave could
possibly be put upon those passages, without destroying the authority of the Bible entirely. He died a firm
believer that he was right as to the shape and motions
of the earth, and that we had grievously departed from
the faith as it had been delivered to the saints.
We have met his kith in every walk of life. Our
pulpits, and even the professorial chairs of our colleges,
have not wholly escaped the tribe. To interpret the
Bible in its most literal sense, and to adhere to the interpretation which their fathers gave, is the test of orthodoxy with them. Sand-hillers, whether laymen or clergy,
whether presiding at the plow or in the university, need
not read this book. They will not like it if they do.
With this inkling as to the style of the book, some
will read it only that they may find fault. They will be
highly gratified, for they will find something on almost
every page to assail. The book asks no quarter. It
simply says, in a consciousness of its correctness:
"Strike, but hear me."
Some will read it without endorsing or condemning
in advance, but, like the good Bereans, will search the
Scriptures and exercise good common sense to see
whether these things are so. We commend their spirit
and judgment. If they are not the happiest class, they
deserve to be, for they certainly are the wisest.
The book is written under the conviction that no
sentiment is more detrimental to the development of our
holy Christianity than that narrow-mindedness.which
requires its votaries to accept as final the opinions of the
fathers as to the teachings of the Bible, or to regard the
incidental opinions of the apostles themselves on matters
of science, and social relations, and human governments,
and physical laws, as above question because inspired.
It was no more possible for the men who were
educated in the selfish doctrines of Judaism, modified
by the scholarly paganism which surrounded them, to
comprehend the scope of the religion taught by the Son
of Mary, than it was for our Pilgrim fathers to compre



PREEA CE.                   ix
hend religious liberty, or our revolutionary fathers to
comprehend the equal rights of man; although their
respective formulas embraced the abstract truth.
Seeing that even the apostles modified their views
daily on the incidentals of their mission, both as to the
scope and intent of the Gospel, why should any Christian teacher insist that the perfection of wisdom and
loyalty is found in adhering to the human dogmas of
other days?
Will any one say that the Christianity of to-day is
not of a higher and purer type than that which obtained
when heretics were silenced by the Inquisition; or when
witches were burned under its sanction even in our
own land; or when sectarian bigotry turned the pulpit
into a platform of polemic strife; or when the highest
motive to a life of purity was the dread of the lake
of literal fire and brimstone? The Christianity of the
ages to come will no doubt as far outshine the Christianity of to-day as our type excels that of a century or five
centuries ago. The world has outgrown paganism and
every false religion because the elements of life were not
with them, while Christianity, true to its divine origin,
keeps abreast, or rather leads the most advanced phase
of human progress.
The apostles and martyrs and confessors never
conceived of the far-reaching influence of the words
they preached in their healthful influences upon the
moral, intellectual, and material interests of mankind.
It is probable that the most sanguine Christian of to-day
is equally unable to comprehend the higher and purer
influences of the Christianity of the ages to come, when,
purified and uplifted by the agencies now moulding
society, there will be more than poetry in calling the
earth, as it then will be, " the new earth," for the former
things will all have passed away; but such results will
never be attained if Christians are compelled to adhere
to the notions of other ages simply because good men
entertained them.
This little book goes forth with no pretentions to




x                    PREFA CE.
great research. It goes, nevertheless, without apology;
expecting no favor from a certain class of critics,
and asking none. What is true and valuable in it will
survive all criticisms; what is valueless will soon be
winnowed out and disappear. Its aim is to do good, to
create a higher and better standard of faith in the Bible
and in the unseen. It will awaken some thought, provoke some discussion, strengthen the faith of some, and
possibly do more good than some books much more
elaborate on the same subject.




CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. Preliminary Observations. Importance and Difficulty
of the Subject. Heathen Notions of Immortality. Old Opinions on such Subjects not always Correct. The Bible not Scientifically Correct. Dr. B. K. Peirce. Style of Criticism to
be Expected. Galileo and the Church. The Bible Contains
Errors. Examples. Reliable on the Subject of Salvation. Examples of Bible Inconsistencies,
CHAPTER II. Bible true though mixed with Human Imperfections.
Bigotry Promotive of Infidelity. Dr. B. K. Peirce. The Soul
is the Man. Made in the Image of God. The Body only the
House. The Meaning of " Formed." Illustrated by other Scriptures.  Male and Female Spirits.  The Body is the Entire
Man, or no Part of Man. Dr. Whedon.
CHAPTER III. Job's Opinions. There is no Hades or Sheol. Job
did not Believe in a Bodily Resurrection. McClintock and
Strong. Dr. Townsend.
CHAPTER IV. The Views of Jacob, David and Samuel.
CHAPTER V. The Views of Isaiah, Hosea, Ezekiel and Daniel.
CHAPTER VI.  Christ's Teachings with the Sadducees.  By the
Narrative of the Rich Man and Lazarus. His Conversation
with Martha. The Transfiguration. The Dying Thief.
CHAPTER VII. The Resurrection of Christ. His Material Body
Certainly Raised. Afterwards. seen only in the Spirit Form.
Dr. Whedon. Dr. Townsend.
CHAPTER VIII. Apostolic Preaching. Paul at Athens, at Antioch,
before Agrippa, the Council, Felix, Festus, at Thessalonica.
Peter on the Day of Pentecost, and at Other Times.
CHAPTER IX. More of Christ's Teachings. All That are in Their
Graves. Raising at the Last Day. What is the Last Day?
The Sea gave up the Dead, etc.
CHAPTER X. Fifteenth Chapter of First Corinthians. The Occasion of the Argument.  First Fruits. Quarterly Review.
Resurrection Fundamental to Christianity. To be Unlike this
Life. The Physical not to be Raised.




xii                   CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XI. The Second Coming of Christ. Apostles Referred
to a Temporal Kingdom. They Changed their Views. Christ's
Prediction. Paul's Opinion. Peter's Opinion. Isaiah Compared with these. John's Omission. No Stars to Fall. End
of the World, what? The Two Men on Olivet. Eminent
Commentators on the End of the World. What the Coming
of Christ is. What to Change Vile Bodies.
CHAPTER XII. Verbal Criticisms. The Difference Between Egersin and Anastasis. The Meaning of "By the Word of the
Lord," and " Rise First."
CHAPTER XIII. The Argument from Experience. The Faith of
the Dying Christian Better than the Creed. Examples. Stephen, Paul, Dr. Olin, Dr. Guthrie, Dr. Cookman, Bishop Clark
and others.
CHAPTER XIV. Theories of the Resurrection Examined. Analogies, Day and Night, Spring, the Caterpillar. The Matter of
the Body Identical with all other Matter. Bishop Ames on
Youth anid Old Age. The Process of Living and Dying. Absurd Theories.
CHAPTER XV. The Relation of Food to the Body. All the Particles of the Body Equally Precious. The Body of one Man
may Become a Part of the Body of Another. Dr. Wythe. Dr.
Whedon. The Sexual Organs to be Eliminated. The Love
we have for the Body. The Body does not Die at Death any
more than the Soul. Dr. Townsend. Dr. Curry. Bishop
Butler.
CHAPTER XVI. Soul Capabilities. Views of Heaven. The
Throne of God. Mind is Spirit.  Heaven not far Away.
Bishop Clark. Dr. Whedon on Spirit. Recognitions in
Heaven. Infants. Idiots.
CHAPTER XVII. The Condition of the Wicked. Their Dreadful
Fate. Not Annihilated. Old Opinions. Hell not a Pit-not
far Away. Lazarus and the Rich Man. The Gulf. Saul and
Samuel. Eternal Burnings.
CHAPTER XVIII.  Deprecatory  Remarks.  Inspiration, Hell,
Heaven, Resurrection, Day of Judgment. Judgment now.
Dr. Whedon's Comment. Lazarus and the Rich Man Already
Judged.
CHAPTER XIX. Concluding Remarks. Fears of Disturbing Faith.
Decline of Pulpit Authority. Young's Views. The Notion of
a Bodily Resurrection Declining. Object of writing the Book.
Expressive Verses. Rev. H. W. Beecher.




THE
Mode of Man's Immortality.
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS -HOW THE:BIBLE SHOULD BE INTERPRETED.
HE most noble impulses of our nature lead
us to inquire into the mode of that future
life which is implied in an affirmative answer to
the plaintive question of Job: " If a man die, shall
he live again?" There have been so many sunderings of earthly ties-so many whom we have
known and loved on earth, and whom we yet
love with unabated fervor, have passed into the
dim beyond —not to speak of our own personal
prospective interests in the question, that he must
be lost to the finer sensibilities of human nature
who does not often inquire concerning the when,
where and how of his immortality. The question
loses none of its interest because it is involved in
mystery. Even though we may hope to acquire
only an approximate notion of the reality, it is yet
a study of great interest and importance. In vain
do we turn to science or even to revelation for a
full and satisfactory solution of this question. It
may be that in some sense the Spirit reveals to
those who fear God some idea of the future life,




14'HE SUB 7ECT
yet its realities are not visible to the eye nor
audible to the ear, nor can the heart of man conceive of them.
When Paul had enjoyed a special vision or
revelation, he apologized for not communicating
the knowledge thus derived by saying that it was
not lawful for him to utter it, meaning, no doubt,
that there was no opening to the human understanding through which such knowledge could
enter.* We may be enraptured with the beauties
of the rainbow, or charmed with sweet music, yet
we do not discourse of music to the deaf nor of
colors to the blind, for we say it is impossible
to make them understand; because there is no law
of nature by which such knowledge can be conveyed to those who have no sense of seeing or
hearing. No more can earthly language convey
to us a knowledge of heavenly things.
It does not follow because our views may be
very inadequate that we, therefore, know nothing
and should be content to know nothing about the
future life. To know that we shall live again is
glorious; to aspire after even an approximate
knowledge of the mode of that future life, and to
seek a preparation for it, is the most noble aspira.
tion of man.
Whence came the idea of a future existence
we can not tell. It has been almost universal in
all ages. It may have been transmitted traditionally from the first pair, but more likely it originated from the instinct of our nature which shrinks
* Not possible. —Marginal Reading.
"Men having no terms of speech fit to express such sublime
ideas as the apostle was there taught to understand."- yoseph
Benson.
"The things which he saw and heard in paradise could not be
expressed in human language." —MacKnight.




DIFFICUL T TO COMPREHEND.        15
from death and annihilation. To men of our times
the conjectures and theories of the most learned
heathens of ancient times seem very crude and
unsatisfactory. We know, even aside from the
light which revelation has thrown upon the
subject, that many, if not all, of their notions
were false.  We know that there is no river
Styx under ground, over which the disembodied
ghosts of the departed are ferried by a ghostly
Charon. We know that there is no Avernus, a
gate-way to Ely sium or Tartarus, which their
mythology had located under or within the earth.
The progress of science, to say nothing of the
clearer light of revelation, has long since shown
such notions to be absurd and untenable. They
were, nevertheless, entertained by educated and
civilized peoples-peoples, who, in some of the
arts and sciences of civilized life, have never been
surpassed. May it not be that the wiser generations of the future will regard some of our notions
as equally absurd and untenable? There is
nothing in analogy, or in the stability of our
knowledge on any such subjects, which certainly
forbids such a possibility; for our knowledge
on this subject is unlike the truths of geometry,
which have been transmitted unchanged for ages.
We teach our children, as confidently as our
fathers taught us, that the square of the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the
sum of the squares of the other two sides; but
who can educe from any known truths in science
or religion any such incontrovertible proposition
relating to the future life that he may insist
upon enforcing his views upon others at the
expense of social ostracism in case of unbelief?
Is it not strange that, notwithstanding our
discarding of the mythology of the ancients, we




16           UNIFtORM OPINIONS
retain, tenaciously, so many of their views of
human immortality? In the conception of most
Christians even, to die is to pass over some
chilly river. We call it Jordan, they called it
Styx; we locate it in the air, they located it under
ground. The heaven of the average Christian is
the slightest possible improvement on the Elysium of the ancients. It is, 1ike their Elysium,
beyond some swelling flood, and when reached, it
is a lovely land, abounding with rocks and hills
and brooks and vales, and amply supplied with
good things for the gratification of the appetitenothing more nor less than the creature of
heathen imaginations, a perpetuation of Elysium,
though called Heaven by Christians.
Heaven is, no doubt, something vastly better
than all this. It becomes us, with all the light we
can command, to inquire concerning it, not discarding any notion because it is ancient, nor
blindly adopting any opinion because held by our
fathers. The Book of God, that revelation of his
will which we call the Bible, is our chief source of
information on this subject, as on all others which
relate to the origin, character, and destiny of
man. It is to be accepted as containing the clearest views of the future life that have ever been
expressed, and such is our reverence for its authority that we assume that it as nearly makes us
acquainted with the sublime realities of the life to
come as can be made known with human language and illustrations, which are designed to reveal the unknown by things known.
But in interpreting and applying its teachings
on this subject we are not to accept as infallible
the opinions of men, however uniform these
opinions may have been for ages. We do not so
interpret its teachings on any other subject, but




NOT ALWAYS CORRECT.                       17
modify our interpretations and accommodate
them to every new light, retaining all the while
profound respect for the authority of inspiration.
Why should the almost unanimous opinions of
Christians on the mode of man's immortality,
running back even until they are lost in the
mythology of the ancients, be accepted any more
than upon the mode of his origin and the creation
of the heavens and the earth, and the motion
and shape of the stars and suns around us?
The Bible is the Book of God. Its essential
truths are eternal; but, being communicated in
detached scraps of history covering thousands of
years, and, in poetry of the peculiar oriental
style of former generations, containing rapt prophetic visions and referring to habits, and manners, and opinions long since obsolete, it is to be
interpreted by a knowledge of the times in which
each part was written, and the questionable words
of its phraseology are to be understood in the
light of modern science and discovery.*
That unwritten Book of God, his works, is no
less authoritative than the written Word. Shal* "It is generally written in the language of common life. Its
human authors filled almost every position in life from the humblest
to the most exalted. The peculiarities of the writers, their cultivation or the lack of it, the times in which they lived, the dialect they
used, the station they filled, are all disclosed in the various books.
They had no special knowledge above their fellows as to
general science and history. They did not pronounce their revelation in scientific form.... The language was human, and
uttered in a style to be understood by the half-enlightened people
for whose benefit it was first declared....  The different
authors expressed in their own language, and by their own illustrations, the ideas poured into their minds from on high.... The
medium was imperfect, and exposes its human limitations and weaknesses..... It is not, like the Ten Commandments, a specimen
of divine composition. "-B. K. PEIRCE, D. D., Word of God Opened,
pi. I9, 2I.




18        THE STYLE OF CRITICISM
low minds have sometimes thought the two disagreed, and bitter have been the denunciations and
persecutions which have attempted to compel an
acceptance of man's interpretation as the Word
itself; but men of mind have on one point
after another conceded that the Word is true,
though the former interpretation was false. It
will forever remain true that "in the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth," although
science has demonstrated beyond a reasonable
doubt that that beginning may date back millions
of years. It is still true that the sun rises and
sets, although science long since demonstrated
that it is stationary and that only the earth
moves.
So in regard to the mode of man's immortality.  While no Copernicus has discovered and
communicated facts which demonstrate the exact
mode of the future life, science has cast at least a
doubt upon the commonly received opinions of
past'ages on some phases of the subject. Can the
deductions of science be harmonized with the
Book of God, or, rather, can such an interpretation be placed upon that book as shall be consistent with the deductions of science, so far as these
are applicable to the subject? Let us see. We
speak as unto wise men, judge ye what we say.
We pause just a moment here to say that we
are not unapprised of a method of criticism which
we must encounter in this discussion. We announce that in this discussion we shall assume,
and we hope to prove, that the Bible nowhere
teaches the doctrine of a resurrection of the
material body, but labors everywhere to teach
otherwise, and that science and reason, so far as
they can be made applicable to the subject, utterly oppose such a theory.




TO BE EXPECTED.             19
This will be deemed by many who regard
themselves reasonable men as utterly insufferable. We are admonished of this by the style of
criticism usually adopted in such a case. Only a
short time ago, an obscure but respectable author
put forth a book upon this subject, taking substantially the view above announced. It fell into
the hands of a reviewer who speaks of it in the
following  imperious style: "When a writer
claims that his individual comment on the Word
is the Word itself, in contradistinction to the nearly unanimous exposition of the great body of
acknowledged standards, he shows an arrogance
that nearly forfeits a right to our attention.
Especially insufferable is this when the doctrine,
like the bodily resurrection, is one to which all
Christendom, whether Greek, Roman, or Protestant, has given its unanimous assent in the
most pronounced terms."-Methzodist Quarterly,
I872. p. 668.
This was received by a certain class of minds
as conclusively answering the book by one stroke
of the pen editorial, whereas the argument, if such
it may be called, is identical in spirit, and almost
in words, with that used by the Inquisition in  633
against Galileo, and by which the Copernican
theory of the sidereal movements was not overthrown. That imperious body, claiming to be set
for the defense of the faith as it had been delivered unto the saints, pronounced the deductions
of science as they related to astronomy, "irreconcilable with the letter of the Scripture;
absurd, false in philosophy and contrary to the
holy Scriptures."  Galileo, having by his " arrogance" forfeited all claims to the respect of the
Inquisition, was cast into prison until he should
recant; but the world moved notwithstanding;




20      TIZO UGH A RE VELA TION, IT
and that Inquisition passed to a future of shame
and everlasting contempt, while the imprisoned
Galileo lives in honor. The Inquisition had the
argument of antiquity on its side. The church,
Greek, Roman, and Protestant, had given its
"unanimous assent" for ages to the former opinions of the earth's shape and position. Which is
the more arrogant, putting forth reasons for a new
interpretation, or attempting to silence investigation by invoking antiquity, or civil or ecclesiastic ostracism?
Another preliminary remark: Receiving the
Bible with the most profound reverence, as a
revelation from God concerning himself and conveying his will concerning us, written by holy
men who wrote as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost, we nevertheless believe that it contains
statements and opinions which are not essential
to the central idea, but which, partaking of the traditions and popular notions of the times, answered
as scaffoldings for the truth, though not true
themselves. The Bible is not to be received as a
revised code, with every irrelevant word and
phrase eliminated, and the remote truths nicely
adjusted. It stands as it was written by kings
and by captives, by shepherds nd by mechanics,
on the throne and in the prison; now history,
now poetry, now cursing, now praising, often
stating the most important truths and seldom
arguing any point; every portion partaking of the
splrit of the age in whlcn it was writtcn-ages
separated by thousands of years. To eliminate
these irrelevant portions and to see God in his
real character is the object of Biblical research
and study. To allow the Bible student to set
aside as surplusage, or as indicating the human
instrumentality through which divine truth was




CONTAINS HUMAN IMPERFECTIONS.   21
transmitted, such phrases as were the mere poetic
adornments of the times, or such statements as
included the legends and opinions of the times in
which they were written —though these statements
may be in the form of historic facts, while not
facts at all-gives authority to the truth; while to
assume that the spirit of inspiration dictated not
only the truth, but the evident human imperfections which are mixed with it, drives thousands
into unconditional unbelief, who would gladly
cling to that which is true and important.
To illustrate: It is not difficult to believe that
the Son of God lifted the chronic paralytic from
his bed at the pool of Bethesda, and sent him
away happy and whole; but when required to believe also that curative properties were imparted
to the waters of that pool by the periodic visits
of an angel, so powerful and peculiar that any
manner of disease could be cured by bathing in
the water thus medicated, and that only one
patient could go at a time-for there was virtue
enough for only one, and he the strongest and
most active of all-this staggers the faith of
thinking men, and thousands, thus repelled, have
turned away from the truth, and have rejected
the whole story as an unfounded fabrication, becoming sooner or later unbelievers in Bible
teachings altogether.
We can understand how the writer came to
record as a fact this legend of the times. There
was a great multitude of impotent people at the
pool, and they were brought there because of
their belief that at times the waters received
medical properties through the agency of an angel. It was not necessary for the purposes of
inspiration that the writer should make known
that this national belief, which had grown in him




22              THE FLOOD OF NOAH
with his growth from childhood, was an unfounded legend, hence it is introduced as a fact,
though only a legend.
Claiming that such a story must be true because the writer was inspired, and that if this be
not true no confidence can be placed in any portion of the Bible, weakens the respect which all
men should cherish for the history of the wonderful life of the Son of God, and which most men
devoutly desire to cherish.
We remark, in passing, that if such passages
may not be eliminated from the sacred truths
contained in the Bible, as interpolations or
unfounded legends, then the Bible is a doomed
book, and all its precious truths, with the
undying hopes they inspire, are soon to be
lost to the world; and it is cowardly and offensive  for any  intelligent  man  to  say  that  if
such liberties are taken with the Bible its authority as a revelation is lost. Intelligent men
accept the Bible intelligently,  not blindly.*
Take another example.    othing is more distinctly stated as a fact than that the waters of
* " This legend is here neither endorsed nor denied, but merely
given to account for the invalid's presence."-Strong's Harmony,
page 66.
" The evangelist does not seem to do anything more than state the
popular legend as he found it."-McClintock and Strong's Encyclopedia, page 777.
"The verse which speaks of the angel troubling the water is
wanting in the most ancient manuscripts." —e Pressense, Life of
Christ, page 265.
"The pool was an intermittent fountain."-Beecher's Life of Christ.
"I prefer, with the best English writers, to onit the whole passage." —Dr. Schaff.
"According to the Jewish popular conception there was a personal angel which produced the moving of the waters. John found
this conception, and admitted it to his narrative."-Lange's Notes.
" The best Biblical scholars decide that thisverse was.not write l
by John."- Whedon's Notes.




A LOCAL EVENT.             23
the deluge covered "all the high hills that were
under the whole heaven." For ages this was
accepted by "all Christendom, Greek, Roman
and Protestant," as stating a literal fact, and
questioners of its truth were handed over to the
ranks of infidelity without ceremony, for to
deny it was to deny  inspiration; and it was
claimed that without that faith in the inspiration of the Bible which would receive all statements of fact as fact, the Bible could no longer
be a book of authority.
But how is it now among men of learning
and piety? We know of no modern scholar of
respectability who claims any such interpretation'for it. McClintock and Strong, whose fidelity
to inspiration has never been questioned, say:
"We are compelled to adopt the opinion that
the flood of Noah was a local event, confined to
one part of the earth's surface" (vol. 2, p. 739).
This language is specially significant.   We are
compel/ed!" It was after a lengthy and exhaustive discussion of the scientific objections to the
"uniform opinion" of darker ages. If science,
that modifier of creeds, that ruthless encroacher
upon old notions, can compel the abandonment of
old opinions on such a statement of physical fact,
why should it be counted " insufferable to call in
question the old interpretations of the Scriptures
which relate to the mode of man's immortality?
Again: Matthew writes as a historic fact that
some prophet had written that Christ should be
called a Nazarene, whereas not a word of that
kind can be found in the writings of any of the
prophets which have come down to us. Volumes have been written to reconcile the statement
with the fact, but there it stands, unreconciled
and unreconcilable, yet easily explained by as



24     TIME MISSION OF THE APOSTLES
suming that Matthew quoted from memory a
tradition which was current among his people.
Such explanations of these discrepancies commend the truthfulness of the record a thousandfold more than the ingenious and improbable
conjectures which will be found in the theological speculations of the dark ages.
What is true as to statements of fact is not
less true as to opinions. The disciples were entrusted with but one work. Their commission
was to preach the Gospel to every creature.
What this implied they had not the remotest
idea until after the revelations of the day of Pentecost. Only one thought, up to that time,
seemed to occupy their minds. Their hopes of
temporal power throngh a restoration of the
nationality of their people, and the occupying of
the throne of David by the wonderful personage
whom they had called Master until his unexpected and ignominious death, were revived by
the several appearances of the Saviour after his
resurrection, but nothing more. There was nothing in his exposition of the Scriptnres concerning
himself-nothing in his declaration that such a
death was necessary that redemption and the
remission of sins might be preached; nothing in
his final commission, " Go into all the world and
preach my gospel to every creature," which
lifted them above their notions and hopes ot the
temporal advantages which were to be inaugurated by the Messiah. At the very last moment
of the very last interview which they ever had
with the Saviour, we find them inquiring solicitously concerning this temporal kingdom: " Wilt
thou, at this time, restore the kingdom of Israel?"
It required the induement of that spiritual
baptism to open their minds to a comprehen



TO PREA CH REDEMP TION.         25
sion of the spiritual character of the mission of
Jesus. Now, and perhaps almost unconsciously,
certainly unpremeditatedly, they begin to preach
redemption and the forgiveness of sins. Peter's
first sermon is a model of simplicity, and he
was no doubt as much surprised at its effects
upon those who heard on the day of Pentecost
as he was afterwards when he saw the house of
Cornelius converted under the rehearsal of the
same simple story of Christ crucified. Henceforth there is a wonderful sameness in the theme
of their discourses and the method of handling
it: " Redemption through his blood and the forgiveness of sins." On this one subject-the only
one committed to them-their views are uniform
and consistent to the end, and we accept those
views as embracing the mind of the Spirit upon
the method of man's redemption. This is certainly God's method of saving the sinner.
But, because we accept their views of redemption so confidingly, and without a question,
must we therefore assume that all which they
believed, or taught, or wrote, is above question?
They had views of social life and views of political rights which were the outgrowth of the
times in which they lived; and their national
hopes and loves could not be obliterated by such
a spiritual baptism as they had received. It is
not strange, therefore, that there should occur
occasional out-croppings of these in their discourses and letters. The thoughtful Bible student eliminates these opinions as local or transitory, without losing faith in the central idea
which they were inspired to understand and
to communicate to others-the doctrine of salvation by faith in the name of Christ. The
moral and spiritual doctrines of the Bible are
B




26          APOSTOLIC OPINIONS
uniform, and to our faith unquestionably true,
while the incidental opinions of even inspired
men may be as untrustworthy as their statements of philosophy or of science.
Thus, when Paul urges obedience to the
powers that be, and denounces resistance to
them in such terrible accents, we may admit
the wisdom of such sentiments as applicable to
those to whom they were written, but we deny
in toto their applicability to our revolutionary
fathers, or to any others who resist tyranny
and oppression. If Paul spoke by authority in
the second verse of the thirteenth chapter of
Romans, every one of our revolutionary fathers
has long since suffered the pains of perdition.
It is mere trifling to say that he meant that
it was a damnable sin to resist a good government, for he says nothing about good or bad
government, but he was in fact writing in behalf of as bad a government as ever existedone which, only a few years later, lighted the
streets of Rome with the burning bodies of
Christians. This is a human opinion, interjected
into Paul's greatest epistle, of merely local and
prudential application, and it is the -business of
Scriptural exegesis to eliminate such from the
important and general teachings of the Word
of God.
Again, who but an incorrigible fossil believes
that the authority of inspiration attaches to
what Paul wrote about the silence and subjection of women? Received in its most obvious
meaning, it forbids their preaching and praying in
public so unmistakably that some of the largest
and most educated denominations of Christians
have not yet recovered from the prejudices and
absurdities transmitted from the Papal church;




OF LOCAL APPLICA TION.        27
and they yet so religiously adhere to the authority of Scripture, as they allege, that they
will not tolerate the public preaching or praying of women. And they are right, if all of
Paul's opinions are equally binding upon Christians. By the exercise of good common sense,
by comparing Scripture with Scripture, and by
making allowance for the age in which this
was written, and the people to whom it was
written, and the occasion for which it was
written, other Christians find no such an inhibition. In this way all Scripture should be interpreted and applied.
If, then, in these items of opinion Paul was
speaking only from  his national prejudice and
narrow views of the scope of Christianity, may
it not be that other opinions held by him, outside of the specialty of his life, were equally
erroneous? In this discussion we shall assume
that at one period of his life he did entertain
such erroneous notions. To what extent and
for what intent we may take this liberty will
appear hereafter. If the reader is not willing
to allow this, he need read no farther.
One more preliminary remark: If in the discussion of this subject we shall appeal to the
Bible as authority and yet reject some of
its most positive teachings as the literal construction of the words would imply, we must
not be counted a sinner above all others, nor
as impeaching our own witness upon which we
rely for light upon the subject under discussion. There are many passages of Scripture
which will not bear a literal interpretation. It
should not be counted strange if some of these
be found relating to so obscure a subject as the
mode of man's immortality, and it can be no




28        EXAMPLES OF SCRIPTURE
answer to our argument that,. in some instances, we do not accept the grammatical construction of the words, if we keep within the
general teachings of inspiration and of reason
on the subject under discussion.
To illustrate: David says, "The wicked go
astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies."
Whatever that means, it is not literally true.
Again, Jeremiah says: "They have sown wheat
but shall reap thorns." That was a physical
impossibility in Jeremiah's days, just as it is
now. "Thls is my body, this is my blood,"
never was true, and never can be. Wine is not
blood, and the Papist who teaches transubstantiation from this text, whose authenticity
has never been questioned, only insists upon
the same method of interpretation that some
of like spirit would force upon the reader of
the Bible on other texts. Does any sane man
insist upon a literal acceptance of this passage:
" Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man
and drink his blood ye have no life in
you"? Yet it is in connection with this doctrine, so repugnant to our senses, that the promise to raise man up at the last day is found,
which is a chief, if not the most direct and
positive proof of a resurrection of the material
bodi. we cannot accept the first clause of John
vi., 54, in its literal sense, why must we believe the latter: "Whoso eateth my flesh and
drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will
raise him  up at the last day"? Both are at
war alike with experience and human reason.
Again, it is written: "Every one that believeth
on the Son, I will raise him up at the last
day."  (John vi., 40.) T'his is a proof-text of a




NOT LITERALLY INTERPRETED.         29
general resurrection of the material bodies of
men, yet only a few verses from this we have:
"He that believeth on me, out of his belly
shall flow rivers of living water." (John vii.,
38.) Shall we accept this in its literal sense,
too? It predicates upon faith in the Son, a
physical absurdity and impossibility not one
whit greater than that of a restoration to immortal life of the dust which once composed
the bodies of men. We know the former is not
literally true, why should we insist on the latter?
To oppose scientific objections to a bodily
resurrection is no worse than to oppose the
same to this latter text.
Dare any Christian to interpret literally the
language of Christ: "I came not to send peace
upon earth, but a sword"?  Yet not one text
can be found in the whole Bible half so pointedly declaring the doctrine of a general resurrection of dead bodies at the end of the world.
The injunction to wash one another's feet
was received in its literal sense by the early
church. The Church of England carried out
the letter of the command in early times, and
there are not wanting sects to-day who insist
upon it as a religious rite. "Greet one another
with a holy kiss" is as much an inspired injunction as is Paul's anathema against the sin of
rebellion, and as much inspired as some of his
opinions relating to the end of the world; yet
why should those who do not kiss each other
on meeting charge us with a want of reverence
for the Bible in eliminating such passages as
evidently refer only to times and customs and
opinions long since exploded?
Taken in its literal sense, the Bible is not
only a compilation of most absurd injunctions,




30          HO W TO INTERPRE T.
but it contains numerous contradictions.  "I
and my Father are one" is a direct contradiction of the text: "My Father is greater than I."
"No man hath seen God at any time" is wholly
irreconcilable with: "He that hath seen me
hath seen the Father."
There is a rational and satisfactory method
of disposing of these textual inconsistencies,
which not only relieves them of their offensiveness, but brings them into harmony with each
other and with other Scriptures, and makes them
tributary to the great truths intended to be
taught by God's Word. It is a puerile question
which is sometimes asked with an air of wonderful concern: "If I may not believe this or
that passage in the most literal sense, then
what may I believe?" We answer, we cannot
tell what you can believe. TWIe believe the whole
Bible, as interpreted by reason and common
sense, and by the Bible itself.  If, because you
cannot believe, for instance, John vii., 38, in its
most obvious meaning, therefore you cannot believe anything,-you  are much to be pitied.
You are, however, in the large company of infidels which dogmatism has made for ages.
The learned Bradford K. Peirce writes: "The
literal meaning is to be given to all words unless
it will cause them to express what is inconsistent
with universal experience as to the nature of
things, or with the declared opinion of the sacred writers in other passages. When the literal
meaning asserts that which is known to be impossible, it must be given up."  Paul writes:
"The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."




CHAAPTER If.
TM BIBLE TRUE, THOUGH MIXED WITH HUMAN ERRORS. THE
BIBLE-ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN OF MAN. THE SPIRIT IS THE
MAN.
W        E have indicated in the foregoing chapter
the spirit in which we appeal to the
Sacred Scriptures for light upon the mode of
man's immortality. In our heart of heart we
cherish a most profound  reverence for the
things revealed, which are able to make those
wise unto salvation who receive the truth in
the love of it; and we shall not be driven from
our confiding trust in the Word, as thousands
have been, by that narrow bigotry which more
than insinuates that unless we accept this Word
as wholly unalloyed by traces of human imperfections we cannot receive it at all. Gold is
none the less gold because it is often found imbedded in flinty quartz, or mixed promiscuously
in the sands under foot. To separate it from the
one or the other is often a work which requires
both patience and skill; and, because of this,
many an adventurer has prospected only superficially, and retired disgusted and disappointed,
bearing false reports of the mines; just as many
a superficial reader of the Bible has denounced
it as a jumble of meaningless contradictions, becauae he would not exercise the patience and
research which are required to look into this




32          EFFECTS OF BIGOTRY.
"perfect law of liberty." This has been one
fruitful source of infidelity.
On the other hand, the most virulent type
of infidelity has found its origin and chief.nurture in that narrow-mindedness which requires
from all an acceptance of everything found in
the Bible as equally inspired, and of equal authority, and all to be construed and accepted
according to some formula of the creeds or not
to be accepted at all. More than once this
style of enforcing the truth has well nigh driven from the Christian standard the cultivated
men of the age, as it did in the earlier stages
of astronomical and geological discoveries and
deductions; for astronomy and geology were at
first tabooed as infidel.
It was the'absurd dogmas of the Roman
Church which made Gibbon and Hume and
such men the unbelievers they were.  Later
dogmas of Protestantism, in one form or another, have in like manner driven from the communion of the church  many valuable men,
because, with little less persistence than Rome
herself, we have insisted upon our interpretation of the Bible being accepted as the only
safe passport to heaven. As our good Pilgrim
Fathers fled from England to avoid persecution,
yet became the most intolerant of persecutors,
so, many narrow-minded bigots are found in
the ranks of Prdtestantism who lack only the
power to become first-class inquisitors.
The happy mean lies between these two extremes. There are golden nuggets of truth in
God's word to be had for the searching; and
we should encourage every man to examine
carefully the things that are written, before denouncing them as untrue; while, on the other




BIBLE VIEWS OF MAN.            33
hand, we should extend the most cordial greetings to those who may not be able to deduce
from the mine of truth just the same formula
of faith that we receive, while the heart trusts
in our Saviour, and the life is regulated by the
precepts of the Bible.
In the discussion of this subject from a
Bible stand-point, we call attention first to the
remarkable uniformity with which the Scriptures speak of the spirit or soul as being the
man himself. There are, indeed, many references to the soul and to the body as only a
part of the man, in deference to the prevailing
opinions of the times and as a convenient form
of speech; but in no case, except in Matthew's
account of one of Christ's discourses (x., I8) are
soul and body coupled together as constituting
man, while in Luke's account of the same discourse this phrase is omitted (Luke xii., 5); thus
at least neutralizing whatever argument might
be adduced from Matthew, proving the duality
of man.
But if the complete nature of man can be
proven by this process, we set Paul against Matthew, and prove that he is triune, and composed
of spirit, soul and body (I Thess., v., 23), and we
set Mark and Luke against both Paul and Matthew, and prove that he is composed of "heart,
understanding, soul and strength" (Mark xii., 33),
or "heart, soul, mind and strength" (Mark xii.,
30; Luke x., 27), each of which leaves the body
out of the composition, altogether-unless the
word "strength " may be taken as referring to it.




34            DR. B. I. PEIRCE.
It furnishes a rational solution to these seeming discrepancies to say, in the language of Dr. B.
K. Peirce: "The Scriptural writers did not pronounce their revelation in scientific form" (Word
of God opened, p. 20). Paul wrote to the Thessalonians using the Greek philosophy of man,
while Matthew used the Roman anthropology,
neither pretending to teach the exact nature of
man.
The most usual language concerning man
speaks of soul and body, spirit and body, outerman and inner-man, or, in modern language,
matter and mind. To this division we shall confine ourself as being both rational and Scriptural,
leaving it to those whose tastes seek nicer distinctions to build him of as many parts as they
choose; two, three, four, or five, for they have
equal Scripture for all.
We repeat that there is great significance in
the oft-recurrence of such language of inspiration
as attributes to the soul or spirit, or the immortal
part, all the qualities of a complete personality,
the ego, the I myself, of our existence. To our
mind the account of creation, as given by Moses,
finds its most rational interpretation in a recognition of this truth: that man exists, independent
of the body, an entire and complete man. We
will not speak dogmatically, but we ask the same
method of interpretation which the acknowledged
facts of astronomy have forced upon the other
statements of this record. It is no greater a departure from the opinions of the fathers than that
which is now uniformly allowed among educated
men as to the creation of the earth, and the sun,
and the stars. The assertion may be assailed as
a new departure, and no demonstrations of physical science may suggest or corroborate it as in




MOSAIC ACCOUNT.             35
the departures which astronomy and  geology
compelled, yet we suggest it as beautifully harmonizing with the other doctrines of the Bible,
especially those which relate to the mode of
man's immortality; and as relieving a seeming
contradiction of the inspired historians.
The record of man's creation is as explicit as
it is short and beautiful. It reads thus: "And
God said, " Let us make man in our image after
our likeness: and let them have dominion over
the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air,
and over the cattle and over all the earth, and
over every creeping thing that creepeth upon
the earth; so God created man in His own image,
in the image of God created He him, male and
female created He them."
This is a complete history of the creation of
man. It includes not only the fact but the motive and the manner of his creation. He is
created in the image of God, that he may have
dominion over a part of the works of God. "A
little lower than the angels, crowned with glory
and set over the works of His hand" was David's
notion of his relative rank and dignity. He was,
when created, according to Moses, "in the image
of God:" he shall be, in his immortality, according to Christ, " as the angels of God."
This image and likeness represented God, not
as the photograph represents the person. It was
not merely a picture of God, but it represented
God as Christ hiinself represented the Father.
Paul calls man " the image and glory of God,"
and he says of Christ that he is "the image of
God," "the express image of His person," "the
image of the invisible God." Hence, in whatever
sense Christ represented the Father, being like
him, in that sense and no less does Paul teach




36             MAN CREA TED
that man was made in the image and likeness
of God, unless good reason can be shown why
one image of God differs from another image
of the same being, or why Paul uses identical
language to represent essentially different things.
That phase of infidelity which professes to
accept the Bible as of divine authority, yet emasculates it by omissions and interpolations to suit
theories of possibilities, has tampered with even
this essential truth, and sought to make the
word conform to its notion, by interpolating in
the text such phrases as: " in righteousness and
true holiness," "in moral nature," "in moral
character." It is like the work of the same infidelity upon the beautiful and significant prayer
of the apostle: "Thatyou may be filled with
all the fullness of God.   It does not quadrate
with the infidel theories of God and of man
that all the fullness of God may be imparted to
man, hence there is injected into this significant
expression the word "communicable," to make
God's word conform to infidel notions of possibilities, and make it read: "that ye may be
filled with all the communicable fullness of God."
Give us rather the truth as it is written, and let
us have it in its divine fullness, whether we
can comprehend it or not.
"In the image of God created He him " is
the unchangeable truth. One drop of water is
not the ocean, yet it is like the ocean in every
respect but its magnitude. Man is not God, but
he is like God in every respect but His infinitude. God is a Spirit. The creed says: "without
bodyv or parts;" but the Bible, which ranks the
creed, says nothing of the kind.  It speaks of
God's face, and hands, and heart, and feet, and
eyes, and ears. But that pious infidelity which




IN THE IMAGE OF GOD.          37
dares not reject the Bible, yet will not believe
it because with our bodily senses and earthly
experiences we can not comprehend how there
can be a hand that is not material, or a foot
that is not physical, or an eye whose lenses are
not like ours, gravely and impiously explains
away the truth which it cannot comprehend,
and teaches that God has no body because He
is not material, and no parts because He is a
Spirit, and yet, forsooth, they discourse occasionally of a spiritual body which they expect
to wear by and by. With them this spiritual
body is conceivable, because, in their theory, the
matter which composes their limbs and eyes will
be used in some way to make a spiritual body
of, while God, not having had an anterior material existence, can have no body or parts, having
had no body to be changed from matter to spirit.
The history of man's creation might have
closed with the 27th verse of the first chapter
of Genesis, and have been complete. It does
close there, and is complete. When Moses
wrote:. "In the beginning God created the
Heaven and the Earth," he closed one complete
chapter or epoch of creation. When he wrote:
" And God said let there be light, and there was
light," he closed another complete chapter or
epoch of creation. So, also, when he wrote:
"So God created man in His own image; in the
image of God created He him, male and female
created He them," he closed another complete
chapter or epoch of creation.
How far back that beginning was, the mind of
man cannot conceive. We talk of millions of
ages, but we know nothing of what is implied
by such a phrase. The child looks upward and
sees a blue vault which it calls the sky, but there




38        THE HISTOR Y COMPLE TE
is no vault, no sky there. It is only the limit of
the human vision. Thus we may go backward
in our thoughts, yet beyond the line which terminates our conceptions the beginning was, and
God was still beyond that.
Geology is not yet, and probably never will
be, an exact science, but its teachings are so uniform and conclusive, that no man of average
intelligence any longer disputes so much of its
teachings as fixes the beginning alluded to by
Moses in the very remote ages, measured by
millions of years; albeit there were men less
than half a century ago, in high ecclesiastical
position, who answered the doctrine much in the
spirit, and almost identically in the language, of
the inquisition of the seventeenth century. It
was contrary to the uniform opinions of the
church in all ages and repugnant to the word of
God.
It is as deducible from the text that the present order- of things followed immediately upon
the event recorded in the first verse of the first
chapter of Genesis-that the sun, moon and stars
were not made until the fourth day, and were
then hung around that immense body which we
call the earth, as servants and ornaments to this
great centre of all creation, as that the subsequent history of man followed instantly upon that
which is recorded in the 27th verse. For anything which may be deduced by analogy or
learned from the record to the contrary, illimitable ages may have intervened also between the
creation of man and the beginning of the history
of our race as given by Moses. The statement
of his creation, like that of the creation of the
earth, and the light, and the stars, is concise,
comprehensive and complete. While we do not




IN THE FIRST CHAPTER.         39
insist that it need date one hour, or one second,
anterior to the embodiment of man, there is
every reason, from the record and from analogy,
to believe that through all these ages man existed in the likeness of God, a spirit, as the angels of
God, and discharged the special duties for which
he was created.
Geological research has unearthed no fossil
remains of the pre-Adamic man, for he was not
material in his nature. He had no " form" made
of clay to perish or to be preserved, but it does
not follow, therefore, that he did not exist.
There were fishes in the sea, and fowls in the air,
and cattle in the field, through all those ages of
preparation; why may not the man who was
created to have dominion over them have lived
also? It will certainly not be claimed by any
modern scholar thlat beasts, and birds, and fishes,
and vegetation, were for the first time created at
the beginning of the Adamic period, although for
untold ages, and, indeed, until within a half century, that was the "unanimous opinion" of all
who received the Bible account as authentic.
The earth had teemed with animal life long
before the time of Adam, and death had done its
work upon the successive generations which had
been, while vegetation had flourished as it never
has flourished since.
In the fullness of time, after the numberless
geological changes which deposited gold here,
and coal there, and granite yonder, by processes
which we but imperfectly understand, the Infinite
chose to make a form for man of the gross material which belongs to earth, and thus for a
season to ally him to the earth as he never had
been allied before. The account of this transaction is found in the 7th verse of the second chap



40            MADE A FORAII OF
ter, and reads thus: " And the Lord God formed
man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into
his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a
living soul," not a compound of soul and body,
as the heathen supposed, and as some Christians
who derive their notions more from the classics
than from  the Bible yet believe. Everywhere
in the Bible this "form," this earthy body, is
spoken of and treated as being something outside
and distinct from the man. Paul calls it the
earthly house of this tabernacle-a mere temporary abode for the man which inhabits it. The
phrase, " And the Lord God formed man of the
dust of the ground," can mean nothing but that
he made a form for man of earthy matter.
It may not be amiss to notice that the Hebrew verb which is rendered formed, in the 7th
verse relating to man and in the Ig9th verse relating to the lower animals, never occurs in the
Bible in the sense of create, or to make out of
nothing, which is the primary and almost exclusive meaning of the verbs used in the 26th and
27th verses of the first chapter, and in the first
and second verses of the fifth chapter. Its usual
meaning throughout the Bible is to fashion, or to
frame, or to form something out of that which
had a prior existence. Thus, Psalms xciv., 9:
" He that formed the eye "; xciv., 20: " That frameth mischief"; Isaiah xliv., 9: "Make a graven
image"; Isaiah xliv., I2: "Fashioneth it with a
hammer." It sometimes has a widely different
meaning, as in Isaiah xi., 13:" Judah shall not vex
Ephraim," and in Psalm xx., 28: "Mercy and
truth preserve the king;" and in Isaiah xlix., 8:
"I have helped thee."  A very significant use of
the substantive form of the word is found in
Psalm ciii., I4: "For he knoweth our frame, he




THE DUST OF THE EARTH.          41
remembereth that we are dust," alluding to the
fact of framizg man of dust-making a frame for
man, as we might well say.
But, at best, such a philological argument is
unsatisfactory, and it is introduced here merely
as cumulative or corroborative, not as conclusive
or material. The best method of reaching the
meaning of such obscure passages is to compare
them with that Scripture whose meaning is well
known and obvious. To our mind it is plain that
the meaning is that he made a form, a frame, a
body, for man, of the dust of the earth; in other
words, he clothed man with an earthy body, or
an earthy garment, or an earthy frame.
We must bear in mind that in every account given of the creation of man, it is always
stated that he was created in the likeness of God.
This statement, found in the first chapter, is
signally emphasized in the fifth. "In the day
that God created man, in the likeness of God made
he him." Nothing like this is found when referring to the forming of man, the making of a form
or frame for man. This forming or framing was
identical in nature with the forming of the beasts
of the field, out of the ground, as noted in I9th
verse, and all chemical and philosophical tests
demonstrate that the flesh and bones of man are
identical in every constituent element with its
kindred flesh and bones, that of animals, made
like his " out of the ground." Of each it may be
said, " dust thou art, and to dust returnest."
Turning to other Scriptures we find a beautiful and conclusive exposition of this account of
the forming of man. Paul speaks in 2 Cor. iv.,
I, 4, of the body as an earthly house, a tabernacle which may be dissolved without destroying, or in any way affecting, his personal iden



42      THE SUBSEQUENT SCRIPTURES
tity, but only enabling the real man to enter at
once into the heavenly house. He maintains the
same idea, Phil. i., 22: "If I live in the flesh,"
and again in the 24th verse: "To abide in the
flesh," while he calls dying a departure of himself from this fleshly abode to be with Christ.
He means the same thing in Gal. ii., 20: "The
life which I now live in the flesh." The man,
Paul, lives in the flesh, and he expects to live out
of it when he departs from it.
The same doctrine is unmistakably taught by
Peter. He says (2 Peter xiv.): "As long as I
am in this tabernacle." The ego, the man himself, lived in a tabernacle, a temporary tent,
nothing more. He then speaks of death as "putting off my tabernacle "-something which belongs to me, but not any part of me. He puts it
off as a man puts off a garment. Again, like
Paul, he calls the present life, "living in the
flesh" (I Peter iv., 2) living in a tabernacle of
flesh. This habitual style of speech cannot be
accidental or without significance.
There can be no mistaking the meaning of
Paul when he says: " I knew a man caught up,"
but whether in body or out of the body, he could
not tell. With him the man was still a man,
though out of the body. He says nothing of the
ghost or spirit of the man, as constituting only a
part of the man, but speaks of the man himself.
Much less significant, yet not wholly irrelevant is the language of Job: " Thou hast clothed
me with skin and flesh and fenced me with bones
and sinews." (Job x., I I.)
If, therefore, Paul and Peter were correct in
regarding the body as a mere tabernacle, which
would only be "put off" at death, a house in




THUS REGARD THE BOD Y.          43
which they lived, and from which they would
"depart" when done with it; if Job was correct in regarding his body as his clothing, the
conclusion is irresistible that the forming of man,
the framing of man, was but the making of this
tabernacle, the making of this clothing, the making of this frame, which is of dust, (Ps. ciii., I4,)
and that this material organism is no part of
the man.
This exposition of the Mosaic account of
man's early life will, however, not be accepted
by those who have, by any process, come to
believe that the after-life will be so unlike the
present life that there will be no father or
mother in heaven, no son or daughter, no husband or wife, no brother or sister, because it has
been revealed that there will be no conjugal relations there. They are almost willing to forego
the fond anticipations of such recognition as ninety-nine-hundredths of Christians entertain, rather
than to believe that man could have existed in a
pre-Adamic state as male and female. Why they
might not they cannot tell, except that there can
not be sexual distinctions in the spirit life. Let
those who entertain so cheerless a view of the life
to come entertain it if they can; the millions of
believers expect to recognize the loved of life as
they knew them here. If they may, then preAdamic man in the spirit form of the Father
may have existed as God created man, male and
female; for, " in the day that God created man, in
the likeness of God made He him, male and female
created He them, and blessed them, and called
their name Adam (the man) in the day when they
were created."  This covers the whole act of
creating. They were created in the likeness of
God in the day-at the time-that they were




44    MANV A1VD WOMAN CREATED BUT
created. They were created in the same day, evidently at the same time. But the record of the
forming of the male man is one thing, and that of
building the woman another.  The male was
formed "out of dust of the ground."  Subsequently a garden was planted eastward in Eden,
and this man, all alone, was put into it to dress
and to keep it. During this period of loneliness
he was commanded not to eat of the tree of
knowledge. It was also during this unmated
state that the work of naming all the cattle, and
all the fowl of the air, and every beast of the
field was performed.  It is an unwarranted
assumption to suppose that this was done by any
supernatural process.  It must have consumed
some time, perhaps days, and possibly weeks or
years. But however short the time, it was because among all the living creatures which were
brought before him, there was no companion for
him, that woman was made.
The account of this transaction is so connected
with the work he had just accomplished that no
other construction can be put upon it. The conjunction "but" can have no other work in this
sentence than to thus make the building of the
woman a sequence of the discovery. "And
Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl
of the air, and to every beast of the field; but
for Adam there was not found a help meet for
him." It was after this that the deep sleep fell
upon him and he lost a rib and found a wife.
As in the account of the forming of the male
man-the making of a form for him, so in this
a verb is used whose primary significance is
to build, and it is rendered "builded" in the
margin. It is the verb which is rendered build
in Gen. viii., o20; x., II; xii., 7, 8; I Kings vi., I;




NOT FRAMED A T THE SAME TIME.   45
xviii., 32, and often elsewhere. A form was made
for man of the dust; a body was builded for the
woman from the rib of the man.
To another class of Bible scholars this exposition will be easily answered by the fact that the
command to multiply and replenish the earth
occurs before the statement of the forming or
embodying of man in his earthly house is recorded. They find no difficulty in the anachronism
by supposing that the seventh verse of the second
chapter is only a restatement of the same fact in
another form as that recorded in the first chapter.
But when we desire to use it as relating to a distinct and subsequent event, the anachronism
means everything.
This objection cannot be answered to the
satisfaction of those who believe that the comprehensive sentences of that first chapter record
events just in the order of their occurrence.
He who believes that the first creative fiat made
only the earth and its heavens, and that other
minor works filled up the other intervening three
days, or three geological epochs, or three thousand years, until, on the fourth day, God made
the sun and moon and millions of fixed stars,
which are suns much larger than our sun, and
that he then judiciously spread them out around
our great earth for its sole use and benefit-he
will find in this statement of the command to
multiply, in advance of the account of the forming of the body, an unanswerable argument, but
nobody else will. As those who believe such an
absurdity are very few, and altogether beyond
the reach of reason, we shall not try to satisfy
them.
The Bible, therefore, teaches nothing more
clearly and constantly than that the mind is the




46      UNIFORMITY OF INSPIRATION
man. No other one thought is so uniformly presented as this. Paul means to state a fundamental
truth when he says the first man was made a "living soul," not a compound of matter and mind, of
soul and body. This idea begins with the first
chapter of Genesis, and, permeating the whole
book, is repeated in almost the last verse of the
last chapter of Revelation. In the first he is
presented as a pure, holy spirit, the image and
likeness of God; while in the latter he is unalterably filthy or holy, as his moral character had
been during the period of his earthly probation.
It is not said: "let the soul of him that is unjust
be unjust still, and the soul of him that is filthy
be filthy still," but the language is used of the
man, and that, too, of the man disembodied, or
unclothed. Not even the omnipotence and holiness of God are so frequently and constantly
presented as this fundamental truth. The Bible
teaches the spiritual character of man or it
teaches nothing concerning him.
But the theory of the mode of man's immortality which is contained in this book is not
dependent wholly or even chiefly on the correctness of the exposition of the Mosaic account
of his creation herein discussed. With unshaken
confidence in its correctness, it is introduced
merely as corroborative of the general teachings
of the Bible, to be alluded to hereafter, and it
is no more to be despised than the arguments
are which are drawn from the nature of the matter which enters into the body, so much like all
other matter that it may well be said to have
been made of dust, while the common language
of life and the uniform sentiments of all peoples
are worthy a place in any argument upon this
subject.




AND COMMON OPINIONS.            47
We speak of the integrity and entirety of a
man, though first one limb, then another, and
another, and another is amputated, until there
is left only the casement of the vital organs, and
even that may survive the limbs for years, and
at last become all gangrenous and effete; at
every stage, to the very last, he is a man-a
whole man, either in law or in the esteem of his
acquaintances, though only a loathsome fragment
of the physical form remains.
Neither does an occasional mention of the
soul, the man, as "my soul," or "my spirit,"
indicate that the body is a part of the man.
But it is suggested that Paul's prayer, "Your
whole soul, body, and spirit be preserved blameless," and " Present your bodies a living sacrifice,"
and " Your bodies are the temples of the Holy
Ghost," all indicate that the body is a part of
the man, because it is included in the scheme
of redemption. We answer that this no more
proves such a thing than the injunction under
the Old Testament, which is continued under
the spirit of entire consecration in the New,
which required the bells, and pots, and fields, and
flocks of the children of Israel to be sanctified
to the Lord, proves that they, too, were the
subjects of grace and a part of the man. The
idea is the same under each dispensation: all
that a good man is or has belongs to God.
If it be insisted as an answer to all this reasoning that the record says he formed man of the
dust of the ground, using the word formed in the
sense of created, the argument proves entirely too
much for its ownr friends. If the material body
which was fashioned or formed out of pre-existing
material is the man, then that alone is the man;
for the wildest dualist has never insisted that the




48         THE BOD Y SAVCTIFIED.
soul was made of dust. The record does not say
that he formed a part of man of dust, and then
completed his manhood by introducing an immortal soul. In whatever sense man was formed
of dust, the entire man was formed; hence the
body becomes the man, and the breath of life
which was breathed into him became no more a
part of him than the steam becomes a part of the
machinery to which it imparts motion and power,
except that by this inspiration the man-that
material form which was made of dust-became a
living soul. This is an empalement upon an uncomfortable horn of their own dilemma, and
proves that after all man is closely related to
other animals; for that dust, that clay, was dust
of the ground, and, like all other dust, had been
enriched by the decay of the animals which had
lived and died in the millions of ages which had
preceded the introduction of man-the making of
man out of dust which had in all probability once
entered into the organisms of the extinct races of
former geological periods. Is this the God-like
man, made in the image of the Creator?
In concluding this chapter, we wish to say
that we have sought to arrive at the true meaning
of inspiration in the account of man's creation, by
that legitimate process of comparing Scripture
with Scripture, and keeping constantly in mind
the underlying truth of the whole Bible: that man
was created in the image of God. As a material
being, he could not be thus created; hence we
conclude that this record shows that the mind is
the man. The spirit, or soul, is the image of the
Invisible Father. Dr. Whedoq, in his notes on
John iv., I4, beautifully expresses the Scriptural
idea, "Herein God and incorporeal man agree,
that both are mind, personality, or spirit, and




DR. WHED ON.             49
being of the same nature, they are able to blend
and commune, spirit with spirit." The views of
Bishop Butler will be found in a foot note at
the end of Chapter XV.
C




CHAPTER III.
THE MODE OF IMMORTALITY AS TAUGHT BY JOB.
ANY discussion of the mode of man's immortality, which would examine the teachings
of the Bible, must of course include a review of
what is said in the book of Job; for more frequent allusion is made to the future state in that
book than in all the Old Testament beside.
When Job lived, or who he was, is not material
to our purpose, further than to say that it is
probable that he lived at least two hundred years
before Abraham, and, therefore, not less than six
hundred years before Moses. Without detracting from the authority of his opinions we must
notice that they partake of the prevailing notions
of early ages and embrace doctrines that we now
know to be false.
Misled by the popular fallacies of the times
relative to the shape and position of the earth,
Job, in common with the nations of antiquity,
believed that there was a world under this world
to which the dead went; and this the Hebrews
called Sheold, while the Greeks called it Hades.
To men of modern thought this seems like a
strange delusion; but it is not so strange that the
generations believed it who regarded this earth
as a horizontal plane of limited dimensions,
around which the heavenly bodies made their
diurnal revolutions, as that men who know that
this astronomical notion has long been exploded.




NO HADES OR SHEOL.           51
by the discoveries of science, should yet retain
not only the language, but the faith of those
times of ignorance and superstition, and retain in
their theology a Hades for the dead, simply because Bible writers, using the language of their
times, and being no wiser in the philosophy of
things than their neighbors, wrote of such a place
as the abode of the departed. When driven by
their better knowledge of the physical world
from the absurdity, as to the locality of a place
for the dead, they cling to the existence of such a
place somewhere in the universe of God, because
Job and David believed there was a receptacle
for the dead; and because Bible writers speak
of it (a blunder and absurdity which underlie
much of the false philosophy yet in existence
concerning the mode of man's immortality); never
seeming to think that an enlightenment which
removes it from that cavern under the ground
takes it forever from the realm of actuality.
If there be no Hades where Grecian mythology
located it; no Infernus where Roman philosophy
placed it; no Sheod, where Hebrew superstition
put it, then there is no more a Hades than
there is a river Styx, or a cave Avernus, or a river
Lethe. It is just as legitimate to prove from the
Bible that there must be some palace for the sun
such as the Greek fables represented when they
pictured him coming forth with his winged
horses; for the Psalmist says the sun has a tabernacle, and "He cometh out of his chamber and
rejoiceth as a strong man to run his race." It is
beautiful poetry with David, adopting the notions
of his times concerning the whereabouts of the
sun during the night, yet that does not make
the existence of such a chamber or palace a
reality, though David believed it as firmly -as he




52       SETHE WORD "RESURRECTION"
believed in the existence of Sheol, and upon the
same authority.
Because, in their creed, the relative position
of this world of spirits was beneath or under the
earth, the common expression was that to die
was to go downward-down to Sheol. It embraced more than the literal lowering of the body
into the grave, and included the supposed descent of the spirit to the dark unknown. Any
reference to a return to earth, or to life, would,
therefore, be expressed as a coming up, or a
rising from the dead, and hence the word resurrection became applicable to the act of returning,
and also to the state of those who had returned.
The argument so flippantly used by those who
believe in the dogma of a future general resurrection, and so conclusive as they suppose, that
because the Saviour and the apostles used the
word " resurrection" in its popular sense, without
explanation, therefore its etymological meaning
must indicate a fact that we dare not question,
is just as valuable and conclusive as that, because
the same authorities used the words rising and
setting as applied to the sun, therefore, the sun
rises and sets, just as the popular opinion of that
day maintained.
The extreme sufferings of Job led him to
speak familiarly and frequently of death, but his
views were but little if any above the notions
of his times, notwithstanding they are often referred to as authority by a certain type of Christian expositors.  He says: "As the cloud is
consumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth
down to Sheol shall come up no more..
Let me alone, that I may take comfort a little,
before I go whence I shall not return, even to the
land of darkness and the shadow of death; a land




PER VER TED FROM ITS MEANING.    53
of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow
of death, without any order, and where the light
is as darkness.... Man dieth, and wasteth
away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where
is he? As the waters fail from the sea and the
flood decayeth and drieth up, so man lieth down
and riseth not. Till the heavens be no more, they
shall not awake, or be raised out of their
sleep."
There is in all this a distinct avowal of a faith
in man's immortality, but there is not the remotest allusion to a bodily resurrection. His Sheol,
the abode of the departed, was not only underground, but it was a land from which there was
to be no return. "He shall come up no more;"
"I shall not return;" "man riseth not;" "they
shall not awake," were the gloomy, cheerless
views he entertained of those who enter that land
of darkness, that shadow of death. It was, indeed, a land of conscious existence, but no pleasure or joy was anticipated therein.
Some, intent on proving the doctrine
of a future bodily resurrection, even at the
expense of making Job contradict himself, construe his poetic allusion to the eternity of the
heavens as the measure of the duration of man's
continuance in that land of darkness, so as to
teach that by and by, when the heavens shall be
no more, then man shall awake and be raised out
of his sleep. Such a perversion of the plain
meaning of any man's language for any purpose
is reprehensible, but when it is undertaken with
the language of Scripture to bolster an untenable
dogma of man's invention, it becomes unpardonable. What respect could we entertain for any
man who should announce that Watts believed
that immortality would ultimately end and that




54            THE VIEW VS OF GOD
then his days of praise would cease, and attempt
to prove it by quoting the following lines from
that poet?
"My days of praise shall ne'er be past,
While life, and thought, and being last,
Or Immortality endures."
Such a perversion of the plain intent of the
poet would deserve the scorn of all honest men,
yet the language is almost identical with that of
lob. The perpetuity of one thing is predicated
upon the acknowledged eternity of another.
The argument is the same with Job and with
Watts.
But we are told that in the nineteenth chapter
Job declares in favor of a bodily resurrection.
That is the very thing that he does not, even remotely or by inference. His language, as given
in the common version, is: " I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand in the latter day upon the earth and though after my skin,
worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I
see God, whom I shall see for myself and mine
eyes shall behold, and not for another, though
my reins be consumed within me."  It is noticeable in the first place that the translators, who
were believers in the doctrine of a future resurrection, notwithstanding that thereby they make
Job contradict his oft-expressed views elsewhere,
inject into the text the words, day worms, and
body, which are not in the original.' Almost any
dogma can be maintained by thus doctoring the
Scriptures.
A literal translation of the original would read
very nearly as follows: "I know that I have a
living kinsman and that at last he shall stand in
the field. Although they [diseases] shall not




EXAMINED.                55
only consume my skin, but the fat and muscles
under the skin also, nevertheless, I shall see God
in the flesh. With my eyes I shall see him, and
not another for me."
If there is anything prophetic at all in this
text, it refers to the coming Messiah, his living
kinsman, whom he expected to see incarnated.
The passage may be aptly paraphrased thus,
if it refers to any far off event: " Let my words
be written; let them be engraved with an iron
pen and lead in the rock forever, for I know that,
bankrupt and diseased as I am, I shall have a
kinsman who shall be my Redeemer, I may now
be consumed by diseases, yet he shall stand at
last in the field of strife, having overcome all
foes; and I shall see God clothed in my flesh. I
shall see him for myself, and no others shall see
him for me."
It is impossible to reconcile Job's gloomy
views of the after-life, so often expressed, with
the hop: of a resurrection, which this passage has
been distorted to teach.  He was as much inspired when he wrote the fourteenth chapter as
when he wrote the nineteenth, yet in that he bemoans the fate of the dead in this most striking
comparison: " There is hope of a tree if it is cut
down that it will sprout again and that the tender
branches thereof will not cease; though the root
thereof wax old in the earth and the stock thereof die in the ground, yet through the scent of
water it will bud and bring forth boughs like a
plant. But man dieth and wasteth away, yea
man giveth up the ghost and where is he? Man
lieth down and riseth not."
Would he have written in this doleful strain
had he entertained a Christian's hope of immortality? Would he have written thus if he had




5G       THE ARGUMENT FROM 70B
believed that to die was to be separated from the
body only a little while and that then soul and
body should be re-united all glorious and immortal?
So untenable indeed is the argument heretofore derived from Job that it is almost wholly
abandoned by late Biblical scholars, even by
those who suppose that elsewhere they find in
the Bible the doctrine of a bodily resurrection.
While the commentators of the last century and
the early part of this were almost uniform in discovering an allusion in these verses to the faroff bodily resurrection, the abandonment of this
by the best writers of late years is so general that
we should not feel justified in referring to the old
interpretation, except that we know it to be commonly received and preached as a proof of a bodily
resurrection. The chapter on Job, in McClintoc
and Strong's Encyclopedia, disposes of the whole
subject in this significant sentence: "The later
doctrine of the resurrection of the body is not
found in this poem." We therefore dismiss Job
with the conviction that there is no resurrection
of the body taught by him, or even hinted at.
Dr. Townsend, one of the Professors in the
Methodist Theological school at Boston, though
a believer in a general resurrection of some sort,
thus disposes of Job: "The true meaning of this
passage is easily discovered if we embrace in our
view the whole drift of the afflicted man's argument. He had been repeatedly charged with a
want of integrity. His friends and enemies had
told him that his sins were the cause of his misfortunes. In his heart he knew that this was
false. He had faith that his past course would
soon receive vindication, and that his integrity
would be proved and acknowledged. The har



EXPLAINED.               57
mony of the entire book of Job depends upon
taking this view of the subject. The passage
may be paraphrased thus: You suppose that I
am forsaken of God on the account of my sins.
It is not true. To be sure I have not the means
at present to disprove your position or establish
mine, but I believe that though I am now suffering and may suffer still more, even until the
worms eat my skin and then eat into my body,
yet in my flesh, on the earth, and before I die, I
shall seeoand you will see my vindication."




CHAPTER IV.
THE VIEWS OF JACOB, SAMUEL AND DAVID.
PURSUING our inquiry into the teachings of
the patriarchs on this subject, we next find
Jacob, nearly four hundred years later, giving his
opinion. The immediate occasion of his uttering
his faith was the calamity which he supposed had
befallen Joseph, who had recently gone from him
in the flush of young manhood; but whose clothes
are before him all torn and bloody, with the
information that they had been found in this
plight, under circumstances which indicated that
Joseph had been devoured by wild beasts. What
does Jacob say? Among many other things he
expresses his opinion of his own and of his son's
immortality thus: " I shall go down into the grave
unto my son." He did not mean the grave, for
his son had not been buried, but had been devoured by wild beasts. Even then his flesh and
bones were becoming a part of their flesh and
bones, but he thinks of his son as living still, not
a naked ghost, but the veritable Joseph in the
Sheol which his times had fitted up, under or within
the earth, as the place for departed spirits. Jacob
did not say that the soul of his boy lived, meaning only a part of the man, and that his own soul,
as a part of himself, would rejoin it shortly, and
that after awhile the beasts of prey would restore
the body of the boy and that the grave would
give up his own body. There is not the remotest




THE APPARITION OF SAMUEL.        59
allusion to any such a faith. He simply says: "'I,
Jacob, myself, shall go down to Joseph, my boy,
and then we shall see each other again."
Years pass in the history of the people which
had been chosen as the depositary of truth, before
we find another incident from  which we can
deduce the notions entertained by them concerning the mode of man's immortality. Samuel, the
faithful prophet, had died, and God had forsaken
Saul. In the madness of his abandonment he
sought an interview with Samuel dead, whom he
had utterly contemned while living. Accordingly
he visited a woman familiar with spirits, or in
modern phraseology, a spirit-medium. The language used in the interview is suggestive of the
notions of the times. The woman asks: "Whom
shall I bring zip to thee?" And Saul answers:
"Bring me up Samuel." Here we have, five hundred years later, the same ideas of death, and of
the future life. To die was to go down to that
under-world called Sheol: a notion not altogether
abandoned to this day, except that we send the
wicked only downward, while we send the righteous upward so as to fix a great gulf between
them!
The phraseology is further suggestive. The
dead retained their individual personality and
identity.  There is no calling for the ghost or
spirit of Samuel, but for Samuel himself, and the
veritable old prophet came, a little displeased, as
he well might be, at this disturbing of his quiet
for so insignificant a purpose; and he talked with
Saul. Among the instructive passages in this
account of spirit manifestation is this: Samuel
said to Saul, after much other conversation: " Tomorrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me." He
does not say thy soul or ghost, as a part of thy



60           THE HEBREW VIEW
self, shall be with my soul or ghost, the immortal
part of me, but thou and thy sons, whatever constitutes your personal identities, shall be with me,
myself, my veritable person. We may have occasion to allude to this incident hereafter as illustrative of an important law of spirit-life.
Not many years afterwards David was called
to part with a child whom he dearly loved. The
circumstances were such as to call out his ideas
of a future life, and to commit the same to the
record. When he perceived that the child was
dead he ceased to lament and fast, but went to
the house of God and worshiped. In explanation of this unusual conduct he says: "I shall go
to him but he shall not return to me." There was
no dividing of his child into soul and body, and no
allusion to any far off resurrection. To his mind
the child continued to live, not indeed in that
lovely casket, but in the land of immortals,
whither he too was going. It lived, a veritable
child, though absent from the body, and he was
to go to him, a veritable man and father. The
body was no doubt tenderly cared for, and suitably laid away, and so were the little garments
which he had worn, and all for the same reason,
the association which each had had with the
child now gone on before-he had worn both.
Years afterwards, when about to die, he said:
"Before I go hence, to be no more," still clinging
to the idea that his personal self should depart,
using substantially the language of Paul and
Peter under similar circumstances.
We call to mind no other incident in the Old
Testament which developed the sentiments of
patriarchs or prophets in regard to the mode
of man's immortality, except that in the account
of the death of each of the patriarchs it is said,




COMPARED WITH THE PAGAN.         61
"and he was gathered unto his people," evidently
intending to teach a continued personal existence
of the real man in another mode of life.
We see how, in most respects, the opinions of
these Bible characters correspond with the notions of surrounding nations. In the opinion of
each, there was a vast receptacle for the dead
somewhere under ground. The heathen poets
more elaborately define this place, giving the
Cave Avernus as the opening to it; and there is
no reason to believe that the Sheol of the Hebrews
was any farther away from the earth than the
Infernus of the Romans. It was a vast cave
within the earth or under it, supposing the earth
to be a flat, thin surface.  And, as we have
already hinted, the demonstrations of science,
which reveal that what is under us at this hour
will be above us twelve hours hence unless it is
within the earth, have not materially modified
the opinions of those who choose to accept old
notions as true, without troubling themselves to
notice their absurdities.
Though there was this similarity in the views
of the ancient Hebrews and surrounding heathen
nations, and though the future of the best of the
patriarchs was cheerless as compared with the
hereafter of Christians, yet it was incomparably
better than the fabrications of the heathen poets,
which have, by the way, contributed so largely to
many modern notions of the future life. While
these made their Infernus a receptacle of ghosts,
as only a part of man,-where they should be tormented by furies and harpies, only a very few of
them drinking of the waters of oblivion and
returning to the upper world, to return again
to the shades, after having inhabited another
body, and so on endlessly,-the Sheol of the He



62       BEA UTY OF DA VID'S FAITH.
brews was a place in which the man should dwell,
disembodied, it is true, yet in the society of those
once loved on earth. There is a world of beauty
in David's faith, bordering indeed on that of Paul.
He not only expected to meet his departed babe
and the lost of life, but he expected to be in the
society of his Lord and be like him: "I shall be
satisfied when I awake with thy likeness."




CHA P TER  V.
ISAIAH, HOSEA, EZEKIEL AND DANIEL.
W        1HILE there is nothing in the writings of
these prophets which relates to the mode
of the future life, if indeed there is any reference
to a future life at all, it is proper that we should
refer to the few passages which, strangely
enough, are supposed by some to prove the doctrine of a future general resurrection.
David is sometimes quoted, (Ps. xvi., Io,)
"Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades nor suffer
Thine holy one to see corruption." There is no
future general resurrection here, even if we were
at liberty to wrest it from its specific purpose.
We have the best of authority for referring the
whole of this Psalm to Christ, in whose resurrection it was fulfilled most literally. His body
was raised the third day, having seen no corruption, but that can not be a pattern or example
of the resurrection of bodies which have for ages
been consumed into dust.
Isaiah has been quoted as though he taught
that the dead bodies of men would rise at some
future general resurrection: "Thy dead men
shall live, together with my dead body shall they
arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust:
for thy dew is as the dew of herbs and the earth
shall cast out the dead." (Chap. xxvi., I9.)
It would seem, indeed, that Isaiah did teach a
literal resurrection of dead bodies, in spite of




64'THE PROPHECY OF ISAIAH
Paul's declaration that flesh and blood can not
inherit the kingdom of God, if he had been
speaking of a future life at all. But alas for such
a conclusion! he was dealing with temporal affairs altogether; and such as were in no enviable
condition. He was speaking of the future of his
nation, not of himself or of the world, speaking of
temporal things, not of eternal things. Take the
connection and read, beginning at the twelfth
verse:
"Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us.. Other
Lords have had dominions over us: but by thee
only will we make mention of thy name. They
[other Lords] are dead, they shall not live, they
are deceased, they shall not rise, therefore thou
hast visited and destroyed them. Thou hast increased the nation,... thou hast removed it
far unto the ends of the earth. In trouble they
visited thee, they poured out a prayer when thy
chastening hand was upon them... We have
been in pain, we have as it were brought forth
wind. We have not wrought any deliverance in
the earth neither have the inhabitants of the world
fallen. Thy dead men shall live, my dead bodies
shall arise. Awake, and sing, ye that dwell in the
dust, for thy dew is as the dew of herbs and the
land of tyrants shalt thou cause to fall. Come, my
people, enter thou into thy chambers, hide thyself
for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast, for the Lord cometh out of his place to
punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity."
In this grouping together the text and the
context, we have omitted no word or phrase that
was necessary to the connection or meaning.
We have taken the liberty of giving a literal
translation of so much of the nineteenth verse as




REFERS TO NA TIONAL AFFAIRS.       65
is depended upon to prove the doctrine of a
future general resurrection, and when thus translated there is not the semblance of resurrection
left; as the context shows there is not even in the
common version. We appeal to every Hebrew
scholar for the substantial correctness of this
translation.
Whatever may be intended by this graphic
description of national humiliation and national
deliverance, the resurrection of the bodies of all
men at some future time is not in it at all, even
as the common version stands. We have yet to
find a commentator of respectability who assumes that the doctrine of a future resurrection
can be proven by this passage. They uniformly
apply it to some deliverance of the children of
Israel, but generally follow Bishop Lowth in saying: " The deliverance of the people of God from
a state of the lowest depression is explained by
images plainly taken from the resurrection of the
dead." Indeed! But that is assuming the very
thing which needs proof. The Bible nowhere
teaches such a resurrection; why should prophets
illustrate temporal deliverances by the creature
of uninspired imaginations?
Identical in import is the prophecy of Hosea
written a few years after the prophecy of Isaiah:
"The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up, his sin is
hid. The sorrows of a travailing woman shall
come upon him....  1 will ransom  them
from the power of the grave. I will redeem them
from death. O death, I will be thy plague! O
grave, I will be thy destruction..  Samaria
shall become  desolate,"  etc.  (Hosea  xiii.,
12-16.)
Turning to Ezekiel we fare no better. In the
thirty-seventh chapter is a remarkable vision




66        THE VISION OF EZEKZEL.
which has been tortured times and ways without
number to prove or to illustrate the doctrine of a
future general resurrection. It would be amusing, if the matter were not so serious, to listen to
the thousand eloquent and pathetic discourses
which have been "founded" on this vision; all
containing graphic descriptions of the rattling
among dry bones which Gabriel's trumpet is supposed to cause at that great day.
Only one commentator that we have been
able to consult is entitled to any respect in the interpretation of this vision, yet, strange to say, the
commentators who deduce resurrection from it
almost wholly ignore him. He was, however,
rather a good old man, though a slave, and he
lived once on the banks of the river Chebar, and
his name was Ezekiel.  He thus comments:
" These bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold they say, our bones are dried and our hope
is lost. We are cut off from our parts. Thus
saith the Lord God: behold, O my people, I will
open your graves and cause you to come up out of
your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.
And ye shall know that I am the Lord when I
have openedyour graves, 0 my people, and brought
you up out of your graves, and shall put my spirit
in you and ye shall live, and I shall place you in
your own land. Chap. xxxvii. II-I4.
This was Ezekiel's interpretation of Ezekiel's
vision, yet in the face of this we find Bishop
Lowth and his followers saying: "It is also a
clear intimation of the resurrection of the dead."
The Bible, as a revelation of truth and as a guide
to man, loses its authority with thinking men,
when those who claim to be its expositors thus
pervert it.
The only other passage in the old testament




DANIEL'S DREAIS.            67
which is claimed as proving the doctrine of a
future general resurrection is that in Daniel,
chapter twelfth; "And many of them that sleep
in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to
everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine
as the brightness of the firmament and they that
turn many to righteousness, as the stars, forever
and ever.' (Verses 2, 3.)
In the next verse he is commanded to shut up
the words and seal the book to the time of the
end, which proves, we are told, that this refers to
a general resurrection at the end of the world,
whereas Daniel never wrote a word on that subject in his life, and never even dreamed of it, so
far as his dreams have come down to us.
The time of what end, forsooth! Certainly
not the end of the world, if indeed the world is
ever to have an end according to the popular
notion on that subject. Turn back to verse fortieth in the preceding chapter and let Daniel
explain Daniel. It will be seen that "the time of
the end " is rather a lively'time, after all, according to this commentator. It reads thus: "At the
time of the end shall the King of the South push
him, and the King of the North shall come
against him, like a whirlwind; with chariots and
with horsemen, and with many ships, and he
shall enter into the countries and shall overflow
and pass over."
That certainly does not sound much like the
scenes which are usually supposed to be connected with the end of the world. Yet this is
"the time of the end" to which Daniel was to
shut up the words and seal the book.
Reading further, we discover that there was
something else doing at this "time of the end "




68        VISIONS AND PROPHECIES
besides awakening from the dust of the earth:
"He shall enter into the glorious land and many
countries shall be overthrown... He shall
stretch forth his hands upon all countries and the
land of Egypt shall not escape, and he shall have
power over the treasures of gold and of silver,
and over all the precious things of Egypt..
But tidings out of the East and of the North shall
trouble him, therefore he shall go forth with
great furyv.... And at that time [the time
of the end] shall Michael stand up,.. and
there shall be a time of trouble such as there
never was since there was a nation, even to that
same time [the time of the end,]... and
many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth
shall awake, etc.
There is not a word in all this which can by
any acknowledged law of exegesis be construed
into even hinting at the resurrection of dead
bodies at the end of the world. It is a graphic
description of national disturbances, but nothing
more. Even if the resurrection of the dead were
alluded to, it would be fatal to the common
theory, for only "many " shall awake, not all, as
the theory of the general resurrection requires.
What is said about the relative honor and
shame of the two classes alluded to was fulfilled
to the letter, on the return of the children of
Israel from captivity. Many who, like Ezra, and
Nehemiah, and Habakkuk, had remained true to
their religion during the darkest days of the
captivity, did shine as the brightness of the firmament, and literally awoke to everlasting life.
They live yet in the hearts of all who love true
patriotism and a spirit of self-sacrifice for the
good of others, while the timid, time-serving
crowd, who abandoned all national aspirations




ALREAD Y FULFILLED.           69
and became Chaldeans in heart and life, lived
only in shame and contempt in the new Israel
which followed the captivity.
These four prophecies refer to the same event
in the history of the children of Israel. Isaiah's
and Hosea's were written in Judea more than a
hundred years before the captivity. These prophecies not only foretold the captivity and the manner of it, but its end and the manner of that also,
and the 26th chapter of Isaiah and the 13th of
Hosea are parts of that prophecy. Ezekiel's
prophecy was written among the captives and
during the captivity, more than a hundred years
later than Isaiah's and Hosea's.  What Isaiah
and Hosea had so accurately foretold as to the
humiliation and overthrow of that people was a
painful reality with Ezekiel, a part of which he
was himself; but the marvelous deliverance had
not yet taken place. It is fitly described by the
vision of dry bones. He uses the same figure
concerning the restoration that Isaiah and Hosea
had used, at least a hundred and twenty years
before-the opening of graves; and he, by the
authority of God himself, applies this figure to
that event.
Daniel wrote about fifty years later than
Ezekiel, yet before the return from the long captivity, and he uses the same illustration, the coming forth of dead men from graves.
Whether either of the subsequent writers
knew what those before him had written is immaterial. It is probable he did, yet these are
separate and distinct prophecies, extending over
nearly two hundred years; and all so minutely
fulfilled that no comprehensive work on the fulfillment of prophecies has ever omitted to notice
them. They stand out as testimonials in behalf




70        REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM.
of the spirit of prophecy which is one of the bulwarks of our holy religion. Why should they be
wrested from their legitimate use and made to do
service in the cause of error?
It is little less than impious to say that, the
teaching of the Bible being in favor of a general
resurrection, these prophecies may be applied in
this way. The preacher of historic renown
whose soul was grieved at high head dresses in a
former period of their prevalence, and who
hurled anathemas at them from the words "top
not come down," (Matt. xxiv, 17,) gave as an
apology that the splrit of the Bible was against
high head dresses, and he was, therefore, justified
in distorting this passage to suit his purpose.
To apply these prophecies to prove or even
countenance the doctrine of a general resurrection
is not any better, but it is worse by so much as
the subject is one of greater interest and magnitude than the style of a woman's bonnet. His
sermon was as legitimately drawn from his text
as is the resurrection of the bodies of men inferred from these prophecies.




CHAPTER  VL
CHRIST'S TEACHINGS WITH THE SADDUCEES, BY THE NARRATIVE OF
THE RICIH MAN AND LAZARUS; BY HIS CONVERSATION WITH
MARTHA; BY THE TRANSFIGURATION; BY HIS CONVERSATION
WITH THE DYING THIEF.
HAVING failed to find the doctrine of a general or special bodily resurrection in the
Old Testament, let us examine the New Testament for the views of the mode of man's immortality there taught. Let us examine carefully and
candidly, for neither the writer nor the reader
can have any motive for deceiving or being deceived. The writer would not unsettle the reader's faith if he could, for any less purpose than
to make him happier, while the reader should
not refuse to carefully examine the truth because
of pride of opinion or the dread of innovation.
We turn to the New Testament with much
assurance, for life and immortality were brought
to light-were illustrated —b  the Gospel. All
that man can know of the future lifelife is taught
in this latest revelation of God to man, unless
it be those supplemented teachings of yet imperfectly recognized pyschological phenomena which
seem to bring the hidden life somewhat within the
range of human experience. To learn, therefore,
what it teaches is to acquire all attainable knowledge on this subject; hence it should be studied
not only by its own light, but by all the light
which science and experience can throw upon it.
At the time of the coming of Christ, the Jewish people did not believe in human immortality




72         ERR ONEO US OPINZONS
as generally as in the earlier and purer ages of
the nation. During the dark period of their history which intervened between the closing of prophetic vision and the dawning of the Day Star, a
period of about four hundred years, they had substituted the vilest traditions for the pure doctrines
of their fathers; making divine service to consist
of mere form, utterly ignoring the spirit of worship, and materializing everything. Prayer was
no longer the communion of a humble heart with
the Divine Father, but it had become a form of
vain repetitions, or a species of self-laudation,
with bitter denunciations and contempt for others.
The Pharisees, who were the extreme literalists of
that day, were prompt to tithe the meanest of garden herbs, but they cared nothing for justice or
mercy. There was not a requirement of the decalogue which they had not abrogated by their materialism. Tradition had become supreme, and
legends were held in greater esteem than the
authentic facts of their national history.
The doctrine of man's immortality had not
escaped this general demoralization.  Living
among an educated heathen people, and being in
political subjection to them, the Jews were more
likely to descend to their level than to lift the
heathen to the plane which the Hebrew people
had occupied in the days of David and Solomon.
Among other defections they had substituted the
heathen notion of the compound nature of man
for the sublimer Scriptural idea of the divine
image being the man; and they spoke of man
as being composed of soul and body. They had
adopted the heathen idea of Tartarus, but had
transferred it from the regions below to the dismal valley of the Sons of Hinnom, near Jerusalem;
and retaining the idea of burning as the punish



IN THE 7E  WISH CZIURCH.       73
ment of the wicked, Gehenna became the hell of
their times, and a place of perpetual burnings.
Those who did not wholly ignore the doctrines
of immortality which their fathers held fixed up a
bungling compromise between the teachings of
inspiration and the doctrines of the heathen, and
believed that at some future time the body would
come forth from the grave and be reanimated by
the soul, and that soul and body would dwell
together for ever, the good in some place above
the earth, the wicked in the burning flames of
Gehenna, near Jerusalem.
It is not strange, therefore, that a large and
influential sect, called Sadducees, arose and, contemplating the absurdity of the popular notion,
swung to the other extreme and denied the doctrine of immortality altogether. Similar materialistic doctrines at a later day have contributed to a
like result. But the Sadducees were false in their
conclusions, because they were false in their
premises, as we shall see.
No doubt they had often confounded, if not
convinced, the Pharisees by presenting the logical
results of their doctrine of the resurrection of the
bodies of men; and now they approach Christ
with the confusion which must result from such a
resurrection as they had been taught to expect.
"In the resurrection whose wife shall she be?"
they asked, with an assurance that if the seven
men all claimed the one woman there must be
trouble. The answer is conclusive as against the
Sadducees, and is valuable for all time, as throwing more light upon the mode of man's immortality than any other lesson in the Bible. "Ye
do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power
of God." There is in this at once a rebuke and
an apology. Ye do err, but your error grows out
D




74             CHRIST REFUTES BOTH
of a misapprehension of the Scriptures on the subject of man's immortality, and in not understanding the power of God. The mode of the future
life is not what ye have been led to believe. It
is not gross and material, but purely spiritual;
" as  the  angels  of God  in  heaven,'  therefore,
"they neither marry nor are given in marriage;"
and he might have added, no doubt, if the question had embraced it, that they neither eat nor
drink, nor sleep, nor die.
It will be seen by the thoughtful reader that
this answer is leveled quite as much against the
false doctrine of the Pharisees as against the false
conclusions which the Sadducees drew from it,
although the immediate intent was to refute the
conclusion that there is no resurrection-that is,
no future life.*
*That the Greek word, Anastasis, in every case in which the
context does not otherwise fix its meaning, refers to a future existence, without any reference to a coming up of the body, is the testimony of learned men of all ages who have had the candor to
express their opinion. How it came to be so used is clear from the
prevailing notions of ancient times, that to die was to go downwards
-for the soul to go down to the Hades of-early times. To live
again or to continue to live would naturally be expressed by some
word which implied a return. The Greek verb from which this
noun is derived simply means to stand up or to stand again, a position which implies life. Dr. Dwight, a man of unquestioned learning and fairness, thus comments on this word:
"This word is commonly but often erroneously rendered'resurrection.' So far as I have observed, it usually denotes our existence beyond the grave. Its original meaning is to stand au, to stand
again. As standing is the appropriate position of life, consciousness and activity, and lying down the appropriate posture of the
dead, the unconscious, the inactive, this word is not unnaturally
employed to denote the future state of spirits who are living, conscious, active beings. Many passages of Scripture would be rendered more intelligible, and the thoughts contained in them more
just and impressive, had this word been translated agreeably to its
real meaning. This observation will be sufficiently illustrated by a
recurrence to that remarkable passage which contains the dispute
between our Saviour and the Sadducees.' Then came to him the




SADD UCEES AND PHARISEES.                  75
We shall refer hereafter to the puerile evasion
of the force of this answer, as against a bodily resurrection, which assumes that the Great Teacher
here meant to say that in the resurrection-in
the future life-so much of the body as constitutes
the sexual distinctions will be omitted, because
they will not be needed where there are no marriages. The occasion was one too important to justify such trifling. In rebuking their materialism
he excepted all of the body to which their question  referred, and by just inference he thus excepted the whole body.
The doctrine of a future bodily resurrection
could hardly receive a more direct contradiction
than is contained in this conversation, seeing that
the only question was that of a future existence at
all.   The  Sadducees cared  nothing  about the
marriage relation in heaven, they denied immortality in toto, and to this denial the Saviour answers
with consummate skill and gentleness, as was his
wont.
In the account of this conversation which is
given by Luke (xx., 37), we have the statement in
this form: "Now  that the dead are raised, even
Moses showed at the bush, when he called the
Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob, for he is not the God of the
Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection,' me einsi anastasinthat there is no future state or no future existence for mankind.
They ask,'whose wife shall she be in the resurrection?' en te anastasei-in the future state. Our Saviour answers' in the resurrection,'
or as it should be translated, in the future state,...'they are
as the angels of God in heaven.'...'Have ye not read that
which was spoken unto you by God, concerning the future existence
of those who are dead?'... This passage settles the dispute
forever. Those who die, therefore, live after they are dead, and the
future life is the anastasis, which is proven by our Saviour in this
passage, and which is universally denoted by this term throughout the
New Testament"/




76           IN REFERENCE TO
dead, but of the living, for all live unto him;" and
the argument is irresistible-God is not the God
of dead men, but of living men; therefore, these
patriarchs are alive now. There is not the least
intimation here that their souls, as only a part of
them, are living, but the entire man lives. In addition to the syllogistic argument, so conclusive as
to the present living of these noted men, it is
worthy of notice that the verb used is much more
significant in this connection than the verbal form
anastasis would be. It is the verb egeiro, whose
primary application is to something already
raised or aroused-the dead are raised, not will
be hereafter.
The account given by Mark is in another form
(xii., 26), yet it teaches the same doctrine exactly:
"As touching the dead, that they rise"-not that
they shall rise in some far off future, using the
same verb, egeiro. The lesson is umistakable.
They are risen, that is, they live. The dead continue to live nothwithstanding they pass through
what we call death.
The account given by Matthew (xxii., 31), is
still in another form teaching the same truth:
"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 living." No wonder that when the people heard this they were astonished at his method of teaching. Here was a
syllogism to prove the present living of these
patriarchs, of whom their biographers had said,
"They were gathered to their fathers," when
mention was made of that change which men call
death. They were alive at the time of Moses,
said Christ; if alive then, they are alive now; there



THE FUTURE ~IFE.             77
fore, there is an anastasis, a future life; a spirit
life, and these men are now living it, tmen, not
ghosts or souls, as a part of themselves, but real
MEN!
Nothing could be more conclusive against the
tradition of that age (that the bodies of men are to
be gathered from the dust of ages,) than this refutation of the annihilationism of the Sadducees.
As we have seen, Christ uses the word " resurrection "in its legitimate sense, as referring to a future existence, without giving countenance to the
vagaries of the Pharisees any more than he
meant to locate hell in the valley of the Sons of
Hinnom when he used the word of the times in
speaking of it.
The lesson, therefore, of this conversation with
these unbelievers is this: By your own'admissions you believe that God appeared to Moses in
the bush. If he did, he announced himself as the
God of the patriarchs who had died long before
that time. But God is not a God of dead men,
but of the living; therefore, Abraham, and Isaac,
and Jacob were living when God spoke to Moses.
If living then, they are living still; hence there is
a resurrection, a standing up again of the dead, a
future life-and that without any reference to bodies which, like those of these living patriarchs,
have perished in the earth.
The argument would have been quite different
if he had intended to countenance the notion of a
future general resurrection of the material bodies.
It would have run about thus: Ye do greatly err,
not understanding the precise nature of that future life. Only the souls of men go directly to
hell or heaven at death; but at the end of the
world, which will be many thousand years hence,
the bodies of all men and women will come forth




78          DIVES AND LAZARUS.
from the graves, and from the seas, and from the
flames, and from the flesh of the beasts of prey,
and, emasculated by the omission of the sexual
organs, so as to adapt them to a country where
these organs will not be needed, they will be
united with the long-separated souls-and then
heaven or hell will be complete. Instead of such
an admission, he neither here nor elsewhere gives
any countenance to the idea of such a general
resurrection.
It may be asked why the Saviour did not
more directly disabuse the minds of the people
on the subject of the future resurrection of the
bodies of men if they were in error. We answer
that he took every possible means to do so, as
directly, and as explicitly, and as frequently, as he
did to correct their notions concerning the nature
of his mission-and with better results, as we shall
see; for the apostles never preached a future general resurrection of the bodies of men, while to
the last they expected a temporal kingdom to be
set up.
There is much instruction on this subject in
the account of the rich man and Lazarus. Lazarus died. No doubt his body was disposed of
as were the bodies of other beggars, yet the account says he was carried by angels into Abraham's bosom. There was pomp and ceremony
in disposing of the body of the rich man, yet
"in  hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and seeth Abraham  afar off and Lazarus
in his bosom."  The lesson to be learned from
this narrative is every way an important
one.  In the first place it is introduced as a
historic fact, not as a parable. There was a
rich man and there was a beggar, they lived
and died as here stated, and in the resurrec



MARTHA'S CREED.              79
tion-in the anastasis, in the future life-one was
happy, the other tormented, as here described.
There is, however, no allusion here to the souls
or ghosts of these men as only a part of themselves. Divested of all their earthly bodies, they
appear, in the land of immortality, distinct and
individual persons. Though one was happy and
the other tormented, they could recognize each
other and speak with each other. They had
eyes and ears and tongues, though they had no
material bodies; the spirit body is not to be without such members. The veritable Abraham was
there, and the veritable Lazarus and the veritable
rich man-all that appertained to the individuality
of either; and all this, while their respective
bodies were commingling with their mother earth.
While Jesus was engaged in his duties as a
teacher on the eastern shore of the Jordan, his
friend Lazarus, of Bethany, sickened and died.
Soon afterwards the Master was found with the
bereaved sisters, and in answer to a half-reproachful suggestion of Martha, he says: "Thy brother
shall rise again," conveying much more meaning
than a mere reference to the miracle he was about
to perform; hence, he uses the word anistemi, referring to the after life, the genuine anastasis, conforming his meaning to the simile used with his
disciples when he said that Lazarus slept. Martha comprehended this only within the limitations
of her education, and answered accordingly,.
that she knew he should live again in the anastasis, in the world to come, or in the future life;
but that would hardly relieve her present bereavement, for her faith postponed that event to
some far off future, and probably referred to the
popular belief in the revival of the body itself.
The tenderness and sympathy of the Saviour




so80      CHRIST'S EXPLANA TION
were not more manifest in the tears which he
shed at the grave, and in his benevolent act in
restoring the lost brother, than in the gentle manner in which he proceeded to correct her mistake
concerning the mode of man's immortality. It
was no timne for controversy nor for such a logical argument as he used with the Sadducees;
hence, instead of ministering the comfort which
that dogma is supposed to contain, by referring'
to the glories of the resurrection morn, as those
who believe in a future physical resurrection are
wont to do on such an occasion, he says, with a
heart all overflowing with love: " Martha, I am
the resurrection and the life: he that believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live,
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall
never die." How could he, in other language,
have so comprehensively stated the truth which
eternally antagonizes Martha's creed and the
materialism of the Pharisees? No wonder, therefore, that he asked from her a confession of
faith in him as being what he here represents
himself. How simple and confiding her answer:
"I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of
God, which should come into the world."
To evade the force of this plain declaration of
truth, those who would make Christ teach the
doctrine of a future bodily resurrection make him
say: " Shall never die eternally," whereas he said
nothing at all about eternal death. His is simply
a declaration of that underlying truth of Christianity, which attributes our immortality to Christ,
the Redeemer, and which he states in other words
to his disciples when he says, "Because I live,
ye shall live also;" and still again when he says:
"I am the way, the truth and the life."
Using the word resurrection in the sense that




OF THE RESURRECTION.                       81
he did when talking with the Sadducees, he here
declares himself the source of that continuous
life which is such that, though a man die, he
continues to live; though he were dead, yet shall
he live; and believing on him, the source of life,
he does not die, but laying off this mortal, he at
once puts on the immortal; ceasing to live on
earth, among men, he lives in heaven, among the
just made perfect.
The whole of these tender words were intended to correct the notion which  Martha entertained in reference to that far-off resurrection at
some  last day, and  to  bring  her to  realize that
what she called death was only a change from
one mode of life to another, and to assure her
that life is continuous and eternal.*
It is not an argument against this interpretation to say that no mention is here made of the
immortality of those who do not believe in Christ.
To press such an argument is to give color to the
dogma of the annihilation of the wicked; for, if
their immortality is here denied by such an omission, it is much more denied elsewhere.
The transfiguration of Christ teaches the same
lesson. With disciples chosen for the occasion,
* The late Bishop Clark, whose scriptural arguments so often
refute the creed which he writes to establish, in his book, Man all
Immortal, says: "' Because I live, ye shall live also' is the great
pledke of our uninterrupted life. He that believeth hath eternal life;
he that liveth and believeth on Him shall never die, and he that hath
the Son hath life. Christ is the source of our life, and as the source
can not become extinct, neither can the life that flows from it.
Death has no power here. Instead of locking our faculties up in
unconsciousness, and isolating us from our union with Christ, it can
only break down some of the obstructions to that intercourse that
have heretofore existed.
"' O glorious hope of immortality!
At thought of thee, the coffin and the tomb
Affright no more, and e'en the monster, Death,
Loses his fearful forkm, and seems a friend.' "




82      CHRIST'S TRANSFIGURA TION:
he went up into a mountain, apart from the multitude. The scene which took place was one ot
transcendent beauty and glory. In describing it,
the apostles use only superlatives, and yet seem to
labor in vain to give us an adequate idea of the
reality. Of the person of Christ they say: "His
face did shine as the sun, and the fashion of his
countenance was altered." Of his raiment they
say: "It was white as the light, shining exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth could
white it, white and glistering."
Was the transformation anything else than laying aside, for the occasion, the form of a servant,
which he had assumed when he divested himself
of the form of God to undertake man's redemption? Peter afterwards calls the mountain the
"mountain of glory," and Paul alludes to Christ's
body as there seen, as " his body of glory," like to
which ours shall be when mortality is swallowed
up in life.
The thoughtful scholar cannot fail to connect
this scene with another witnessed by John, many
years afterwards, on the island of Patmos. There
appeared amidst the golden candlesticks, "one
like unto the Son of Man," yet so unlike the
Man of Sorrows whom he had once followed, that
he did not recognize him until the apparition introduced himself as "He who liveth and was
dead, the Alpha and Omega." John says: "His
head and his hairs were white like wool, as
white as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of
fire, and his feet like unto brass, as if they burned
in a furnace."
No painter can transfer this picture to canvas,
nor can any words give us any clearer idea of
the reality; yet the Scriptures give us a personal
interest in it, because it was to bring us to such




ITS TEA CHINGS.            83
a glory that the Captain of our salvation was
made perfect through sufferings; for when we
see him we shall be like him-pure spirit, having
the image of God, as our first parents had before a body was formed for them of the dust
of the ground.
At the transfiguration there *were with him
Moses and Elias, and they were like him in their
appearance. And who were they? One was a
prophet of olden times, who, after serving his
generation, left the world in an unusual manner.
Walking alone with his servant, Elisha, his body
ascended, dropping only his outer mantle. What
became of that body and the rest of the clothing
he was wearing is merely a matter of conjecture.
Those who believe in a literal resurrection of
the bodies of men assume that somewhere in
mid-air it was changed from a vile human
form into a glorious, immortal and spiritual
body, such as they suppose mortals will wear
after the gathering up of the matter which once
composed their earthly bodies.
Possibly this may be true. If the Omnipotent, who could create man a pure spirit in
his own image and likeness before he formed a
body for him out of earthy matter, now needs
this earthly matter, or any part of it, as material
out of which to make a spiritual body, this was
probably the case. To us it seems much more
scriptural and rational to suppose that the matter of Elijah's body, like the clothes it wore,
was decomposed by natural causes, and found
its way to mother earth as all other bodies do,
and that the soul, the man, the real Elijah, appeared in heaven, with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
David, Samuel, and other men, in his spiritual
body; that is, a pure spirit, "as the angels of




84         TWO VERITABLE MEN
God in heaven."  Be this as it may, Elijah appeared with Christ, the veritable Elijah of history; not his ghost or spirit as only a part of
him, and certainly not waiting for a future resurrection for the completion of his heavenly person.
""0  certainly not," says the believer in a
bodily resurrection; "he took his body up with
him, and that body was spiritualized and glorified; and in a spiritual body thus prepared, he
appeared with Christ."  Very well; but how
about Moses? Moses was not translated. He
was certainly buried (very much as we suppose
Elijah was). How came he to have a resurrection body-a spiritual body-a glorified body?
He  certainly made the same appearance as
Elijah. Had some body-snatching angel been
disturbing the repose of his dust in advance of
Gabriel?  This must have been the case if our
complete equipment for immortality depends
upon a reunion of soul and body after aeath.
But does any one believe that the body of
Moses was thus disturbed?  Is it not still in
the valley of Moab over against Beth-peor? If
not, why not?
Is it not the dictate of good sense, as well
as of sound faith, to believe the record just as it
stands?  Two men appeared in their heavenly
forms, in their "spiritual bodies," in that "building of God," that "house not made with hands,"
"as the angels of God," "like Christ" in his
transfigured body, his body of glory, just as all
the just made perfect are like him when they see
him as he is-neither of the two having any precedence over the other, although there is a difference in the general notion concerning their respective deaths and burials. They and the transfigured body of Christ were visible to the eyes




APPEARED WITH CHRIST.           S5
of the disciples just as the chariots of Israel and
the horsemen thereof were visible to the astonished servant of Elisha. No theory consistent with<
a future general resurrection can allow this, while
the plain Bible doctrine of the mode of man's immortality allows it as entirely consistent with a
thousand other facts in spiritual phenomena. The
transaction is only another illustration of the continued existence of man, without regard to the
body, whether, for sufficient reason, that be
caught up in a chariot of fire, or be buried by
the hand of God, or that of man.
But for the necessity of stripping this incident
of its beauty in order to maintain the tradition of
a bodily resurrection, it would have been hailed
in all ages as one of the facts of the Gospel which
bring to light life and immortality. More honorable in its associations than the interview between Saul and Samuel, it would, like that, have
taught us how man continues to live after he is
separated from  his temporary earthly encumbrance.
The Saviour evidently intended to teach the
same lesson in his conversation with the penitent
thief upon the cross. The'narrative is short, but
it is full of'meaning: "This day shalt thou be
with me in paradise."  As in all other cases,
there is here no separation of the man into parts,
sending one part to some half-way house to wait
through interminable ages for a resurrection of
the other part. Christ never gave any countenance to such a dogma. Then, if ever, he might
be expected to; but he speaks to the man, of the
man, and says, This day shalt thou, thy personality,
thy real self, be with me, my real self, not in some
underground cavern, but in paradise, in heaven.
Here Christ is again teaching the continued per



6E           THE DYING THIEFF.
sonal existence of man in spite of that incident
which we call death. There is to be no lapse of
time between death and the possession of the
fruition of immortality. No sophistry can evade
the force of this lesson.
Taken together with the other incidents of
the Crucifixion, the dying expression of the
Saviour-" Father, into thy hands I commend my
spirit" -casts no little light upon the mode of
man's immortality. It was the spirit, the real
man, escaping from the material form, and entering at once into the society of the Father. It
was to be accompanied by the personality of the
thief, to the home and presence of God. The thief
was to go at once to paradise. The spirit of Christ,
the immortal man, was to go to the hands of the
Father; yet, they were to go together! Where
is there in all this any place or time for the abode
of Christ in some intermediate cavern or place,
which was neither heaven nor earth, to be called
Sheol or Hades, for thirty-six hours or more,
before he should return to reanimate the lifeless
clay which had been committed to Joseph's
tomb? The Bible and the philosophical theory
of man's immortality obviate all the confusion and
absurdity which usually cluster around this closing scene, by assuming that the soul, the spirit,
the real man, left the body, to feel no more interest in it than in any of the other particles of matter which had been taken on and thrown off
during the third of a century past. The presence
of God and paradise are one and the same-they
are heaven. That the dying thief went thus to
the society of the Father with the Saviour is
evidence indisputable that we too, dying, shall
be at once and forever with the Lord.




CHAPTER  VII.
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.
IN view of the vast importance which attaches
to the resurrection of Christ, Peter might
well savy, " Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, which hath begotten us again
unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead."  It was henceforth to
become the central fact in Gospel history, and
one to which the Apostles never failed to appeal
in their preachings, whether their audience were
Jew or Gentile. Had this Man of many miracles
and of matchless speech yielded to the dominion
of death, that would have been an end of his
authority and power. It was needful, therefore,
that this final attestation of his mission should
be, like the works which testify of him, public
and indisputable.
His miracles were not wrought in a corner,
and his resurrection was so public, and so well
authenticated, that the apostles never attempted
to prove it in their discourses to the Jews, but
always alluded to it as an event which the Jews
dared not deny.  Human ingenuity could not
have devised Stronger proofs than human malice
planned. Taken from the garden where he would
have laid down his life of himself, all alone with
his disciples, he was "lifted up," that the representatives of all nations, then thronging Jerusalem, might see that he died. That the most care



88         CHRIZST'S RESURRECTION
less stranger in all that surging multitude might
be attracted to the sufferer, there was written
an "accusation" which could not fail to elicit
notice, and it was written in every language
which was spoken by that cosmopolitan crowd.
All this on the part of his enemies, while the
Father called attention to the dying Son by the
unnatural darkness and the earthquake. He had
certainly died, and he was buried, and again
human malice interposes to do what human ingenuity could not. The tomb was guarded by
a band of men in the interest of his enemies, so
as to prevent the possibility of a fraud; but, in
spite of all this, he came forth from the grave,
no less to the surprise of his disciples than of his
enemies; but to the disciples it was the begetting
of a lively hope, while to his enemies it became
the fact in the history of Christ which they most
had to dread. But, as we shall see, this resurrection had nothing to do with any future resurrection of man, and was never alluded to in that
sense by the Apostles, but often referred to as a
final and convincing attestation of authority and
approval.
Of this resurrection we notice a few striking
facts, as they stand out in the narrative. In the
first place, the literal physical body of Christ
came up out of the grave just as it had been laid
there, three days before. To make this physical
fact possible, the stone which had covered the
grave was rolled away. What then became of
the physical body, thus raised, we cannot tell.
It is very clear to our mind that none of the
interviews had with the disciples were ever in
that natural physical body.  His challenge to
Thomas does not necessarily indicate this. The
disciples were alarmed at the sudden appearance,




EXAMINED.                 89
and they supposed they had seen a specter or a
phantom. Dr. Strong renders the word spirit in
the 37th verse, apparition, and in the 39th verse
spectre, and the great Greek scholar, Griesbach,
substitutes phantasma for pneurna in the text. It
would be eminently appropriate for a man in the
spirit form, "as an angel of God," to say that a
phantom or specter had not flesh and bones such
as the angels assumed when they talked and ate
with Abraham and rescued Lot from the violence
of the mob, and "such as you see me have."
Elsewhere we quote from  Dr. Whedon a very
scriptural and rational opinion of the properties
and capabilities of spirit, such as angels are. In
his Notes on Luke xxiv., 29, he attributes to this
person substantially the same attributes:
"Perhaps all will grant that our Lord's ordinary stay between the resurrection and ascension
was in the invisible form.          His body
possessed a superiority to the control of gravitation, to the need of food and clothing....
He was able, more or less, to modify it at will.
He could identify himself to Thomas; he
could be grasped by.the women.; he could, like
the angels in Gen. xxviii., 29, invest himself with
apparent garments, and eat and drink before his
disciples; [Then why not with apparent flesh
and bones?] he could enter the invisible instantaneously; he could appear under'another
form,' could pass through any material impediments.         After his resurrection as at no
previous time he seemed often unrecognizable to
the best acquainted eyes. His ready presence at
different places evinced his power of invisible
and instantaneous transference through space at
will."
Let it not be objected that if his appearances




90         NOT A FZLESHLY BODY,
were not in his real fleshly body then they were
delusions. Not so, at all. His appearances were
as real and in the same way as the angels at the
tent of Abraham in the plains of Mamre, or as
the angels to Lot in Sodom, and for as worthy a
purpose. Those angels ate, and talked, and exerted physical strength, yet they were only
angels in the form of men, if indeed they were
not truly men, as the record states —some of the
worthy ones who had lived in earlier years, returning, as afterwards Moses and Elijah did, to
be ministering spirits to those heirs of salvation.
Could not this incorporeal man now "as an
angel of God" in like manner have assumed
human shape, and even human flesh and bones
as he indicated to Thomas? Even though
he stood before his disciples clothed in veritable flesh and bones, as we cheerfully admit
he did, it does not follow that it was the
identical flesh and bones he had worn before
death, any more than that the garments he
appeared in were the identical garments which
had been divided by lot and otherwise among the
Roman soldiers. His eating and talking with his
disciples do not prove that he carried about with
him. in a perpetually strange and unnatural manner the body which had been buried, and which
had so certainly, yet so mysteriously, disappeared
from the tomb. The extract from Dr. Whedon
above quoted shows that he admits that if it were
the veritable body it had been thoroughly spiritualized-deprived of every element of matter, as
we understand matter, and clothed upon with
every attribute of spirit, as nearly as we can
comprehend spirit. In that better day of Scripture exegesis which is surely coming, and towards which the above quoted comment is a




BUT A SPIRITUAL APPARITION.             91
long stride as compared with the interpretation
of former ages, the Christian church will discover nothing strange or inconsistent in any of
the incidents recorded of the risen Saviour.
There are several circumstances which indicate that the appearances recorded were not in
the real fleshly body. In the first place there is
no case recorded in which the disciples or the
women recognized him at first. Again, the record
is almost uniformly in this manner: "He appeared
first to Mary."  "After that he appeared in another
form."  "HIe appeared unto  the eleven."  "Appeared unto Simon." "And he vanished out of
their sight."*   He is represented as traveling
rapidly, as entering rooms while the doors were
shut and retiring in the same way, while it was
necessary to roll away the stone from the door of.
the sepulchre that the real physical body might
be removed. We repeat that no part of the
narrative is consistent with the supposition that
he "appeared " in his natural fleshly body. Where
did he keep himself during the repeated interims
between these  "appearances?"   Why was he
seen only by chosen ones?   Even on the occasion when he challenged inspection he had
"appeared" suddenly, the doors being shut.
To suppose that the essential personality of
the Saviour went at once to paradise, as he had
promised, and as all do who die in the Lord, and
that on the morning of the third day the angel,
* Some persons of average reading seem to regard this vanishing
as nothing more than the hidingalluded to, John viii., 59. No modern
commentator of repute so regards it. Lange, on John viii., 59, says:
"A vanishing out of sight, as in Luke xxiv., 31, is hardly to be thought
of." Strong says: " Jesus escaped by burying himself in the midst
of the crowd."  Whedon says: "Jesus probably moved away by a
route which interposed protecting objects."




92        VIE WS OF THE APOSTLES.
which had physical strength enough to roll away
the great stone, had at the same time taken
charge of the material remains of the Saviour
and suitably disposed of them, as the body of
Elijah and that of Moses had been disposed of,
and that the several interviews were just what
the evangelists represent them to have been"appearances," sometimes in one form and sometimes in another, as they tell us-is to remove
from the narrative inconsistencies and contradictions which tradition has thrown around it, and
to make it consistent with itself, and with known
laws of matter and of spirit.
In the disappearance of the body from the
grave, under the circumstances, all was accomplished which the Divine Father had in view by
ts resurrection-an attestation of its mission.
The facts of that disappearance were so public
and so well authenticated that no appearance of
the risen Christ was necessary, except to his disciples. The earthquake, and the power which
felled the soldiers, and the testimony of the
Roman guards themselves, convinced the Jews
that it was no trick or fraud practiced by the
disciples.
That the disciples understood these visits of the
Saviour to be just what they call them, " appearances," is evident not only from the narratives
of the four evangelists, but from the statement
of Paul also. In his enumeration of the several
times of these interviews, he says: " Last of all
he was seen of me also."  How? Certainly not
in his physical body. Even those whose dogma
needs the physical body of Christ to have gone
through so many unnatural and unphysical performances, that they may have a "model" for
their bodily resurrection, will not claim this;




CHRIST AND LAZARUS.                     93
for, according  to  their theory, that body  had
been spiritualized and glorified, and to have it
now assume human form is all that we claim
for Christ, as a spirit, on these occasions. Evidently, the appearance to Paul thus referred to
was distinct from the vision which he had when,
" in the body or out of the body," he was caught
up to see the unutterable things of the future
life, and was in like manner with the other appearances, and for the same purpose-to communicate important information in order to confirm him in the faith of the Gospel.*
Again, how different the account given of the
risen Saviour and the risen Lazarus! Lazarus
was seen by the whole people, foes as well as
friends of Jesus, and the enemies of Christ
counseled how they might put him to death also,
when they should kill the Saviour. The narrative speaks of Lazarus as a living man, moving
among the people as any other man; but there
is not the least intimation of any such a man in
the person of the risen Christ. He is utterly
unknown to his enemies, and known only to a
very few of his friends, and to them only on
occasions chosen by him, not by them.t
* " He here, no doubt, speaks of Christ's appearing to him on the
way to Damascus."-yose5ph Benson.
"It is evident, from the history of Saul's conversion, that Jesus
Christ did appear to him."-Dr. Adam Clarke.
t We here take the liberty of quoting a few paragraphs from the
book "Credo," already alluded to, as showing that some of the
sentiments above expressed are not merely the vagaries of an eccentric mind, and, therefore, to be dismissed with a dignified, pooh!
pooh! but that men of recognized scholarship and high official position are abandoning the grooves of old exposition on this subject.
Dr. Townsend, the author, is one of the most esteemed teachers in
the Methodist Theological School at Boston, and, notwithstanding
invectives have been hurled at him by less progressive thinkers, he
is retained in a position best calculated to enable him to unsettle old




94                   DR. TO WNSEND.
beliefs, and introduce new interpretations of the Scripture. If this
does not give the sanction of that church to such opinions, it at least
indicates the dawn of that day of Christian liberality which no
longer puts men in theological straight-jackets, and requires a pronunciation of a given Shibboleth as a condition of fraternal recognition:
" The argument for the resurrection of the old body, particle for
particle, is also supported, it is claimed, by the fact that Christ's
natural body was the one raised from the tomb.
"Two suppositions are legitimately deduced from Christ's literal
resurrection: either that it was designed to be a seal of his commission, a manifest miracle, to confirm the world of his divinity, to reassure the wavering faith of the disciples, and, being witnessed by more
than five hundred different persons, to have vast influence in spreading Christianity during the first century, or else it was designed to
be an exact type of our own resurrection.
" Which of these two suppositions is the more reasonable? Do
the Scriptures by word or hint suggest that Christ's resurrection was
a type of ours? Can his resurrection, in any proper sense, be an
exact type? Were the most important conditions of such a resurrection fulfilled by him? He was but three days in the grave, while
we must slumber there for ages. He did not see corruption, while
we are to become dust and ashes. But even if this difficulty could
be removed-though it can not —would it not seem far more reasonable, and infinitely more grand, to look upon our Saviour's resurrection as the seal of his divinity, and the first fruits, not of the resurrection, but of them  that slept? Where, then, is Christ's physical
body? it may be asked. Did it ascend to heaven?  Did not the
disciples witness its ascension? Is he not there to-day? Flesh and
blood are not there.'Five bleeding wounds he bears'is Watts'
poetry, not Paul's Letter to the Corinthians. Christ's glorified body
was not the body shown to Thomas. Save at the transfiguration, it
was not seen by any of the disciples until after the ascension. It
was then seen. Stephen saw it, crowned with dazzling splendor, on
the day of his martyrdom. Paul saw it above the glory of the sun,
on the road to Damascus. John saw it in Patmos. Great multitudes of dying Christians have seen it. Nay, we believe the valley
is dark and lonely to him only who knows not Christ. But this
glorious body is not precisely the one which walked to Emmaus, or
met Mary at the tomb. Where is that body? We do not know
where it is. The record says nothing about it, and beyond the record
we can not go. We might say that the fleshly covering was annihilated, or that it underwent a gradual transformation, or was cast off,
and the gross materials flung back to earth, but it is only safe to say
that he has a glorious body, which is now the type of our resurrection body, without flesh, without blood... May we not, then, conclude that Christ's resurrection was designed for a seal of his ministry, rather than an exact type of our resurrection?"- Credo, page 307.




NE W INTERPRE TA TIONS.                   95
We add, parenthetically, that, though neither Dr. Townsend nor
Dr. Whedon adopts fully our exposition, they both repudiate the old
notion, and by that much at least prepare the way for the adoption
of a more rational and scriptural theory. They each go as far as
it is prudent for them to go, seeing the official relation which
they sustain to the dogma of a general resurrection of some kind at
the end of the world, though on that subject they differ radically
from each other, and each from the common opinion.




CHA P TER VIII.
THE TEACHINGS OF THE APOSTLES ON THE RESURRECTION.
W    l TE ought to find the doctrine of the future
general resurrection of the bodies of men
in the sermons of the Apostles, if they ever believed or taught any such thing. Let us carefully examine the few specimen sermons which
have come down to us. While in them we shall
find abundance of Jesus and the Resurrection, we
will not find one word or syllable which can be
properly construed into that figment of dogmatic
theology which is commonly known as the general resurrection.
In the I8th verse of the seventeenth chapter of
the Acts, we find a statement of the impression
which Paul's preaching made upon certain Grecian philosophers at Athens, and they accused him
of being a setter-forth of strange gods, and therefore the introducer of a new religion. The feature of his discourse which was most striking to
them was that he preached Jesus and the resurrection. They demanded an explanation of this
and he proceeded to give it, first by a reference
to their own beliefs and poets, and then, lifting them higher by their acknowledged views
of the true God, he insisted that such a God
could not be made of silver or gold, after man's
device. This true God, said he,- has heretofore
winked at the times of ignorance, but now he
commandeth all men everywhere to repent, "for




PA UL'S A THENIA A ARGUMEN T.     97
he hath appointed a day [not necessarily just
24 hours long] in which he will judge the world
in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained."  "How  shall we know that?  What
assurance can be given of such a truth?" the
Athenian was ready to inquire. To which Paul
replies: "Of this he hath given assurance unto
all men, in that he hath raised him from the
dead." That this is the resurrection which caused
the talk, and is alluded to in the I8th verse, is
clear from what follows in the next verse: " And
when they heard of the resurrection of the, dead,
some mocked." Of what dead? So far as the
record states, or any inference can be drawn
from it, there had been no reference to any dead
but the dead Christ.  Even if these scoffers
should have alleged that he taught a general
resurrection of all the dead, or any number of the
dead, that would be no proof that he did so
teach, for they had just lied against him in charging that he taught that Jesus was a king, opposed
to Caesar (verse 7).
But it is not plain that even their language
can be tortured to mean all this. He had introduced the resurrection of Christ only as an assurance of his right to judge the world. He refers
to the same resurrection in Romans (i., I4) for
the same purpose: " He was made of the seed
of Abraham according to the flesh, but by his
resurrection from the dead he was declared to be the
Son of God with power. Again, in the same
spirit, and for the same purpose, he refers to this
great fact when explaining Christ to his Hebrew
brethren at Antioch: "We declare to you glad
tidings.. how that God hath fulfilled the same
to us in that he hath raised up Jesus again."
Acts xiii., 33.
E




98            TIHE HOPE, AND
Is there any future general resurrection, or
any other future resurrection, in any of these?
Language could not more definitely fix it, than
as it is here limited to the resurrection of the
dead Christ, and this is not argued, nor even
asserted, but it is alluded to, as a well known
fact, only as an " assurance" that Jesus had been
appointed by the Father to "judge the world in
righteousness."
In the twenty-sixth chapter we have another
sermon in which this favorite theme is discussed.
The sixth verse reads thus: "And now I stand
and am judged for the hope of the promise made
of God unto the fathers." What promise? Certainly not the promise of a future general resurrection, for no such a promise was ever made.
Take your reference Bible, and you will be
pointed to such passages as these: 2 Sam., vii.,
12, " When thy days shall be fulfilled, and thou
shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy
seed after thee."  Ps. cxxxii., II: " The Lord
hath sworn unto David, of the fruit of thy body
I will set upon thy throne."  Isaiah vii., I4, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and
shall call his name Emmanuel" "-and much more
of like import.
This was the promise made of God to the
Fathers, and when we read these promises we
do not so much wonder that the Jews expected
a temporal deliverer; and when we find the
Apostles so often referring to this hope, so long
after the death of Christ, we will not wonder
that they tinged their faith still with a hope of
his return during their own lives, or, at furthest,
during that generation, to fulfill this promise, as
we shall see by and by.
"It is for the sake of this hope, King Agrippa,




THE RESURRECTION.            99
that I am accused of the Jews," said the Apostle.
But Christ had died; how, then, could this
hope yet remain? Why, it depended upon his
resurrection from the dead; hence the constant coupling of this fact with the hope, and it
was this which gave the offense. His appeal to
Agrippa's knowledge of the true God, though a
Gentile, has no other significance than this. He
asks: "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the
dead?"  What dead?  Certainly not the bodies
of all the dead, at some remote future time, but
the dead Christ. True enough, the Greek adjective is plural, but that does not prove that he
meant to include the dead bodies of all men.
It is only a common form of stating a general
proposition, which may be applicable to only one
person. Thus, we may be speaking of the
exercise of some executive pardon which excites surprise.  Should we reply by asking:
" Do you think it strange that the Governor
should pardon criminals? " we should not expect to be understood that the Governor had
pardoned all the criminals, or that he ever would.
The question would be just as appropriate if he
had never pardoned but the one, and never was
expected to pardon another.
Read Paul's touching allusion to his own personal experience, beginning at a time when he
was no more of a believer than Agrippa, and
ending with a statement of the doctrine of his
several sermons, in this language: "Having obtained help of God,. I continued unto this day,
witnessing to both small and great, saying none
other things than these which the prophets and
Moses did say should come: That Christ should
suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise




100     PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES.
from the dead, and should.show light unto the
people and to the Gentiles."
We have here Paul's own declaration that he
never preached a future resurrection of the
bodies of men, for he preached none other things
than those here enumerated. Again, take your
reference Bible and look up the sayings of Moses
and the prophets, from which it is assumed that
Paul preached a future general resurrection, and
you will find no such resurrection in or near
them. His appeal to Agrippa, a Gentile, as a believer in the prophets, is a beautiful specimen
of eloquence, but utterly meaningless if he had
had any reference to such a doctrine, because
that doctrine is not in the prophets.
It will be observed that this final statement
of the manner and matter of his preaching is the
summing up of his defense, as it had been made
several times in the course of his trial, which had
now lasted over two years, and which had begun
before the Chief Captain (chap. xxi., 37). Before
the Council, consisting of both Sadducees and
Pharisees (chap. xxiii., 6), Paul states that he is
called in question for the hope and the resurrection of the dead. What that hope and that
resurrection were we have already seen. He
evidently uses the word resurrection here in its
generic sense, just as Christ did in his conversation with the Sadducees, as intending to antagonize the doctrine of that sect; and the author of
the record so applies and so explains it, for he
tells us just what the Sadducees meant by their
creed: " no resurrection " [no future life], for they
believed in "neither angel nor spirit"; but the
Pharisees believed in a resurrection, that is in a
future life, for they "confessed both," angel and
spirit.




PA UL'S CONSTANT THEME.         101
He repeats the same, substantially, before
Felix (chap. xxiv., I4): "I confess that after the
way which they call heresy, so worship I the
God of my fathers, believing all things which
were written in the law and the prophets, and
have hope towards God, which they themselves
allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the
dead, both of the just and the unjust."
Here is a beautiful coupling of his faith in
the resurrection, that is, in a future life, with the
doctrines of Christ as they had been foretold by
the prophets; how he should suffer and rise from
the dead. Using the word resurrection in the
sense that Christ used it when disputing with the
Sadducees, as referring to the future life, and as
it is everywhere used in the Bible, except when
specifically applied to Christ, he gives no countenance to the doctrines of the reanimation of
dead bodies at some far future time.
Putting the accusation and the defense together, we have this statement: In chapter xxiv.,
2I, he says: "Touching the resurrection of the
dead I am called in question." In explaining
how he preached the resurrection of the dead, he
informs us, two years afterwards, in the twentysixth chapter, that it was by saying "none other
things        than that Christ should suffer and
that he should be the first that should rise from
the dead."
At another time we find Paul preaching this
same resurrection to the Thessalonians. The report of that sermon will be found in the seventeenth chapter, 3d verse: "That Christ must needs
have suffered and risen again from the dead."
No general resurrection at the last day here!
In the twenty-fifth chapter we have a scrap of
history such as would be considered very valuable




102          PE TER'S DOCTRINE
in any legal investigation where circumstantial
evidence might be needed; (though, in fact, we
are not in need of mere circumstantial evidence,
having direct proof enough that t/e resurrection
which was preached by Paul referred wholly to
Christ, except where the context plainly shows
a reference to the doctrine of the anastasis, or
immortality, as contrasted with the annihilationism of the Sadducees.)
Paul had been before Festus, accused by the
Jews of many grievous things. During his preliminary trial, as is well said by Dr. Whedon in
his notes on the i9th verse: "Jesus and the resurrection had evidently been debated." The impression made upon the mind of Festus by Paul's
method of preaching this doctrine is thus given
in his statement of the charge brought against
Paul. "They had certain questions against him
of their own superstition, and of one Jesus
which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive."
Here we have, in a semi-official form, that in
preaching the resurrection  he preached that
5esus was alive. Nothing more. Not one word
about a general resurrection.
We have thus followed Paul through his sermons and found not a shadow of a general
resurrection at the last day. Let us turn to
Peter's sermons, a few of which are preserved.
On the day of Pentecost he says: " Him, being
delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and with
wicked hands, have crucified and slain, whom
God hath raised up. (Acts ii, 23.)
In the thirty-second verse he repeats the
same doctrine, thus: "This Jesus hath God raised
up."
In the third chapter, at the fourteenth verse,




THE SAME AS PA UL'S.         103
he recurs to his favorite theme, Jesus and the
resurrection, in this manner: "But ye denied the
holy one and the just, and killed the Prince of
Life whom God hath raised from the dead."
In the twenty-sixth verse he preached the
resurrection of the dead in a manner which grieved
the Sadducees, and they laid hands on him and
put him in prison on that account. And here is
the sermon: " God having raised up 7esus sent him
to bless you." There is not a word of allusion to
any other resurrection than that of Christ in this
sermon or in any that preceded it.
In his defense, which followed (chap. iv., Io),
he does not apologize and say that they misunderstood him and therefore misrepresented him,
but he defiantly repeats the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead in these words: "Be it known
unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that
by the name of Jesus Christ, whom ye crucified,
wh)om God raised from the dead, by him doth this
man stand before you whole."
In the fourth chapter, at the twenty-third
verse, we have a summary of the preaching of
the apostolic band, and its results, in these significant words: "And with great power gave the
apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and great grace was on them all."
Subsequently, having been released from prison by the ministry of an angel, the apostles were
found preaching in the temple, "all the words
of this life." Surely here we shall find the resurrection of the bodies of all men, at some future
time, as connected with the pattern which Christ
set in his resurrection, as a fulfillment of the
pledge which the resurrection of Christ gave, for
they preached "all the words of this life."  But
here is all that the historian thought it necessary




104      CHRIST AND IMMORTALITY.
to record: "The God of our fathers raised up yesus,
whom ye slew and hanged upon the tree. Him
hath God exalted to be a prince and a Saviour,
to give repentance to Israel and the remission
of sins."
This, then, was apostolic preaching as shown
in the book of the Acts. They preached repentance and the remission of sins, through the name
of the Lord Jesus, and alluded constantly to the
resurrection of Christ as an "assurance" that
God had constituted him a prince and a Saviour,
never once speaking of the resurrection of the
bodies of all men as any part of the scheme of
salvation. They speak of the future life of man
as connected with the sacrifice of Christ-a resurrection-a future life of the just and the unjust.
Enough, also, is recorded to show that they still
expected a fulfillment of "the promise to the
fathers," a restoration of the nation of the Jews
to prosperity and power-a lingering Jewish
error which tinged all.their writings and sermons, as we shall see in the proper place.




CHA P TER IX.
CHRIST'S DIRECT TEACHING OF THE TIME AND MODE OF MAN'S
IMMORTALITY.
HAVING thus examined the matter and manner of apostolic preaching, we recur to
the more direct teaching of the Saviour on this
subject to show that these disciples did not depart from rightful authority in attributing human
Immortality to the merits of Christ. It is only
through Christ that man lives-Christ the resurrection and the life.
On the occasion of the miracle which healed
the impotent man, recorded in the fifth chapter
of John, the Saviour more distinctly declares
his character and mission than he ever had before,
if not more distinctly than at any other time
whatever, giving additional offense to the Jews,
who had been outraged by his' healing on the
Sabbath. His announcement of his divinity is
conclusive, unless we assume that he willingly
left them in error concerning the import of his
language. His account of himself is about this:
"Whatsoever the Father doeth, the Son doeth
likewise. I have healed a sick man, and ye marvel. There are greater works committed to the
Son than this. As the Father raiseth up the
dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son
quickeneth whom he will. He that heareth my
words and believeth on Him that sent me, hath




106        CHRIST'S PHRASEOLOGY
everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation because he hath passed from death unto
life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that the
hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall
hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that
hear shall live."
In the twenty-eighth verse the expression is
somewhat different, chiefly in using the word
graves, and in omitting the phrase now is. The
usual method of disposing of these passages is to
make the twenty-fifth verse refer to a spiritual
resurrection, but the twenty-eighth to the general
resurrection of bodies at the end of the world.
Dr. Whedon perhaps as correctly expresses the
opinion of those who find a bodily resurrection
here as any other writer, when he says: "All that
are in their graves.  It is universal, ALL. It is
bodily, and of the same body that was buried.
The very bodies that are laid in the graves are
the bodies that arise. The very body that dies
is the body that revives."  This is the germ
thought, the central idea of the doctrine of a
bodily resurrection-" The very body that dies is
the body that revives," and this passage, more
than all other passages of Scripture, is relied
upon to prove it.
Let us examine it a moment. The language
is: "All that are in their graves shall hear his
voice and shall come forth." But this does not
say all the bodies that are in the graves shall come
forth. Whatever it refers to is predicated of the
entire man. It is repugnant to every sentiment of
Christianity, and no less to half-enlightened
heathenism, to locate our departed ones in the
grave, and it is sheer pettifogging to say that because only the body goes into the grave, therefore, Christ referred only to the body. Will any




EXAMINED.               107
intelligent Christian say that if Christ were speaking of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob he would
locate them in their graves? When he spoke of
them he spoke of them as living, not as dead. If
Christ had intended to teach the doctrine of a resurrection of bodies he would not have spoken of the
entire man as being in the grave, but would have
said, as he nowhere says or intimates: that the
bodies which are in the graves shall hear his
voice and shall come forth. Again: whatever or
whoever are here intended could hear.  Dead
bodies cannot hear any more than rocks can hear,
and it is forcing a meaning upon Christ's words
that is unauthorized to say that when he chooses
he can make rocks or dust hear. The simple natural truth is that he uses the words "in the
graves" just as we use the words often. We say
"he has gone to his grave," or "he is in his
grave," meaning only that he is dead. Hence
the discovery that quite another thing is meant
by the 28th verse from that implied in the 25th
is wholly gratuitous and unauthorized. This is
further evident, because, if the words are not
used in this sense, none are to be raised unless
they have been literally buried.
But even if the language were as emphatic as
the language of Dr. Whedon above quoted, and
taught a bodily resurrection as unmistakably, it
would be inadmissible to prove such a doctrine
as that of a reanimation of the scattered dust of
the millions who have died in the ages past, and
the millions yet to die in the millions of years yet
to come, by this one Scripture, especially when it
stands as this does, in the midst of such Scriptures as these: " He that believeth on me, out of
his belly shall flow rivers of living water." Why
may we reject the plain grammatical meaning of




108    THE FALSENESS OF LITERALISM.
this text, which teaches such a physical impossibility, and yet must accept as literal that which
refers to the dead, even supposing that he refers
to bodies only? This is not a whit more imprac.
ticable or improbable than that. The only differ,
ence is that we know this is not true, by daily
observation; we are not allowed to exercise our
senses, or to reason on the other, because we are
told it is outside the realm of reason, and purely
within the realm of faith.
Again: why may we refuse to accept the lit.
eral meaning of this other passage, all in close
connection with the one on which so much stress
is laid: "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of
Man and drink his blood ye have no life in you.
Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood
hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the
last day," and not be permitted to suggest that
the former may have some other than its literal
meaning,-even if the Saviour had said: " I will
raise up the bodies which are in the graves,"
which he does not? This verse just quoted has
also resurrection in it-resurrection at the last
day at that, but it is a resurrection which cannot
take place unless we eat the flesh and drink the
blood of Christ. The Papists find transubstantiation in this text, Protestants do not. The Papists
prove their doctrine by it with much less circumlocution than the doctrine of a bodily resurrection can be proven from the former.
By the exercise of that plain common sense
which educes from the hyperbolic passages we
have just quoted some of the most cheering and
instructive doctrines of the Bible, these two companion texts, and several of like import scattered
among these figurative declarations of the Saviour, can be made to harmonize with the other




SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PRESENT TENSE. 109
teachings of the word, and to convey truths of
the utmost moment; but a bodily resurrection
is in neither of them.
Whatever is predicated of one is of the other.
The phrase, In the graves means the same as the
dead, and nothing more. What then is taught?
It is something that now is. The use of the present tense is significant. The Father raiseth; the
Father quickeneth,' the Father judgeth; he that
heareth; believeth; is passed; hath committed. The
import of the whole is that, since the Father hath
committed all judgment to the Son, and the Son
hath life in himself, from this time forward the
dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and
they that hear shall live, and he will exercise his
authority as judge to separate the righteous from
the wicked, just as, from the beginning until now,
the Father hath quickened and judged.
Unquestionably, the raising up of the dead,
the future life, and all that is implied in this marvelous demonstration of power, was something
already begun, of which the curing of the impotent man was only an evidence of the right
and power. Instead of intending to teach what
is sometimes claimed of this conversation, it is
really aimed at the prevailing materialism of the
times, just as his conversations with the Sadducees and with Martha were. The occasion was
different, and the style is different, but the lesson
is the same, and it is consistent with the general
teaching of the Bible on the subject of man's
immortality. The dying man hears the voice
of the Son of God and lives; that is, immortality is through Christ, and now, not untold
ages hence. To Martha he expressed this same
truth when he said: "He that believeth on me
shall never die." To these Jews, on this occa



110   IMMORTALITY ALREADY BEGUN.
sion, he says: "He  that believeth  on him  that
sent me hath everlasting life."
The import of his account of himself, given
in the sixth chapter of John, is precisely the
same as here. " The bread of God is he which
cometh down from heaven and giveth life to the
world. I am the bread of life. And this is the
will of him that sent me, that every one that
seeth the Son and believeth on him may have
everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last
day." If what had preceded this expression
had not definitely fixed the meaning of the phrase,
"at the last day," as referring to the time of
the man's death, what follows (verse 47) does:
"Verily, Verily, I say unto you, he that believeth
on me hath everlasting life."   But, lest their tradi
tional ideas of a future general resurrection
might rob this doctrine of its beauty and force,
he repeats-v. 50: "This is the bread which
cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat
thereof, and not die....  If any man eat of this
bread, he shall live forever.... Whoso eateth
my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life,
and I will raise him up at the last day."* (I will
give him life when he comes to die.) And yet
again, as though he would repeat this truth so
that it never could be forgotten or misunder* The absurdity of predicating a closing up of terrestrial things
upon this and similar phrases is manifest to any one who will explain
Scripture by Scripture, with a purpose to reach the truth, instead of
building up a dogma. Paul defines the end of the world in Hebrews
ix., 26: " In the end of the world hath he appeared." He does the
same, i Cor., x., II: "For our admonition, upon whom the ends of
the world have come." Peter, Acts ii., I7, defines the last days to be
the days in which he lived; and Paul, Heb. i., 2, says " in these last
days he hath spoken by his Son." There is not a well defined instance in which either phrase refers to the closing up of earth's
history.




DEA TH AND HADES.            111
stood, he adds (v. 57): " As the living Father
hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that
eateth me, even he shall live by me.       He
that eateth this bread shall live forever.
It is the spirit that quickeneth..      The
words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and
they are life."
One other passage, often quoted to prove the
doctrine of a bodily resurrection, is found in
Rev. xx., I3: "And the sea gave up the dead
which were in it, and death and hell [Hades] delivered up the dead which were in them." But
this can not be made to even allude to a bodily
resurrection, without according to it its proper
place in Biblical literature, that of high-wrought
oriental poetry, and then as a proof text it wholly
disappears.
The usual method of appropriating it is to
assume that it refers to a general resurrection
and then to prove that it refers to the bodies of
men, " because neither Christian nor heathen ever
believed that the souls of men go into the sea."
Such expositors seem to wholly overlook the
second clause of the text, which predicates the
same thing of Hades, for it too delivers up the
dead which are in it. We may ask quite as dogmatically: Does any one, Christian or heathen,
ever believe that the bodies of men go into Hades
If universal belief is worth any thing in the first
clause, it is equially valuable in the second. If
dead means bodies when coming from the sea,
why does it not mean bodies when coming from
Hades? It is an unwarrantable species of argumentation to assume a doctrine, and then prove
it by thus making the same word mean such dissimilar things in the same sentence. It means
just what it says in each case-the dead, not the




112    CONSISTENT INTERPRE TA TIONS.
bodies as such, nor the souls as such, but the dead,
and its meaning will be easily ascertained when
we find the meaning of the other poetic language
used in its immediate connection.
In the sensuous ages which found in this poem
a literal great white throne, a literal recording
angel, who kept a literal account with every man,
in literal books; and that at a literal judgment
these literal books were literally opened; that
there was a literal camp of literal saints, and that
a literal Gog and Magog surrounded the literal
camp of these literal saints; and that there was a
literal battle, and that the whole ended in locking
up the discomfited in a literal lake of literal fire
and literal brimstone-in such an age it was
bearable that, as a part of the things here literally described, there should be a literal resurrection of the dead from the sea, and from death,
and from Hades; but even then it was not
allowable to prove a bodily resurrection unless
the body went to Hades also, for it, too, gave
up exactly what the sea gave up-nothing more
and nothing less. But why should the lake, the
fire,.the brimstone, the great white throne, the
camp, and the battle all be dismissed by intelligent expositors from the catalogue of literal
things, and yet the resurrection and the judgment be retained; and then the text be mutilated
to prove a resurrection of bodies in one clause,
and a resurrection of souls or something else in
another, though the same word is used in both?
It cannot be allowed. There is no resurrection
in the text at all, much less a resurrection of
bodies, at the end of the world.
But if this view of the subject did not remove the text from any possible service in proof
of a bodily resurrection, the fact that the sea




THE DEA D IN THE SEA.         113
holds, at any one time, a very insignificant fraction of the bodies of men, should indicate that so
general and universal an event as the supposed
final resurrection could be very imperfectly
taught by such language. Allow that all who
are drowned in any and all waters, whose bodies
are not rescued and buried, and all who are buried in "the deep, deep sea," remain in the waters,
it would still be too insignificant a fraction of
the whole to demand such prominence; but the
bodies which fall into the water, whether river,
lake or ocean, remain in water but a short time,
even in a disorganized state.  If the monsters
of the deep do not devour them, and thus give
the matter which once composed those bodies
new forms, and start it out on ten thousand subsequent destinies, the action of the waves brings the
decomposed matter to the surface, and light, and
heat, and winds, and clouds bear it to the neighboring forests and fields, just as all other gaseous
matter is borne, and it becomes a part of trees
and plants, the same as though it had perished on
the land and remained unburied, or buried-for
the deepest graves of only a quarter of a century
contain but little that can be recognized as the
dust once animated by a living man.
The sea gives up the dead bodies which are in
it every day and every hour, by the law which
God has ordained. Of all that is given to it, it
retains nothing for any such final surrender as
the theory of a general resurrection requires.




CIHAPTER  X.
THE ARGUMENT OF THE FIFTEENTH CHAPTER OF FIRST
CORINTHIANS.
THE most elaborate and conclusive discussion
of the mode of man's immortality, except in
the conversations of Christ with the Sadducees,
and with the enraged Jews, is found in the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians. The immediate occasion of this was that some had been teaching that there is no resurrection of the dead. Paul
does not allege that any one has been denying the
doctrine of a future general resurrection, but they
have denied that mode of immortality which the
Saviour alluded to when he spoke of the continuous existence of the patriarchs; and Paul uses the
word "resurrection " in the sense that Christ did,
as applicable to the after-life which those patriarchs were already enjoying when God spoke of
them to Moses.
This is the same heresy as that alluded to' in
2d Tim. ii., I8. "Saying that the resurrection is
past."  It was that narrow view of the Christian
religion which limited its benefits to this life only,
and to the Hebrew people chiefly if not exclusively; a view entertained by nearly all Hebrew converts until after the destruction of the temple,
some four years after this letter to Timothy.
Paul himself was not wholly free from it until this
last imprisonment, as we show elsewhere, though




MA TERIALISTIC ERRORS.          115
his faith was more comprehensive from the beginning than that of any other apostle; a fact which
often led him into sharp controversies with the
Judaizing teachers. Hymeneus, and Alexander,
and Philetus, had given him much trouble on this
score, and he turned two of them over to Satan,
that they might learn better, (I Tim. i., 20,) and
pra ed rather an equivocal prayer for Alexander,
(2 Tim. iv., I4,) showing the depth of his grief on
account of their persistent dental of the doctrine
of a future life through Christ.
The first part of this chapter (I Cor. xv.,) is an
argument in favor of a future life based upon the
sacrifice and merits of Christ, that life whose resurrection was an " assurance" that God had ordained
him for this purpose, (Acts xvii., I3,) with no reference whatever to the mode of attaining. The latter
part is devoted to the mode, in answer to the fool
who insisted on knowing with what body they
would come, repeating, substantially, the materialistic objections of the Sadducees.  In  his
answer, as we shall see, he uses almost every
possible form of speech to assure the objector
that he  will not live in  a material, fleshly
body, but that he will live, notwithstanding; for
Christ lives, and because he lives we shall live
also.
He introduces his argument for man's immortality by referring to his method of preaching
when, six years before that time, he established
the church at Corinth. This reference to his
manner of preaching shows that his theme was
the same as when preaching among his own countrymen: "Jesus and the resurrection."  "I delivered unto you first of all, that Christ died for our
sins, according to the Scriptures, and that he was
buried, and that he rose again the third day, accord



116       A PRESENT RESURRECTION.
ing to the Scriptures." One cannot fail to notice
the similarity of this account with that given to
Agrippa: "Saying none other things than those
which Moses and the prophets did say should
come: that Christ.should suffer, and that he
should be the first that should rise from the dead."
Only in one thing did his sermons in Greece
differ from his sermons in Judaa. Here he never
alluded to the evidences of Christ's resurrection;
there he details the manner by which they became satisfied of its truth, but in neither account
does he give any intimation that he ever preached
a future general resurrection of the bodies of
men.
Proceeding with his argument, he says:
"Now, if Christ be preached that he rose from
the dead, how say some among you that there is
no resurrection of the dead?" (Not that there
will be no resurrection, as would be proper if he
had referred to a future general resurrection.)
" But if there be no resurrection of the dead (no
future life), then is Christ not risen, and our
preaching is vain, and ye are yet in your sins, and
they that have fallen asleep in Christ are
perished."
This is a summing up of the terrible failure
which would have befallen Christianity but for
the "assurance " which the Father gave of the acceptability of the sacrifice of Christ, by raising
him from the dead.
Having thus settled the preliminary fact that
Christ had risen, he proceeds to say that in rising
he became the first fruits of them that slept.
Among the children of Israel the "first fruits"
was an offering to God of the first sheaves of the
harvest, the first grapes of the vintage, and the
first of everything, including the first-born of the




THE FIRST FRUI TS.           117
family or of the herd. It was a contribution to
the expenses of religious worship; the first-born of
the family and of unclean beasts being redeemed
by something which could be made serviceable as
food for the priesthood. Its significance was that
God had the first claim upon their increase, as
well as that the first was generally the best of
its kind. The requirement is the antithesis of
that which forbade the offering of the lame, and
the deformed, and the imperfect, —the giving,
grudgingly, after every other claim was satisfied, an  offering  to  God.   Just  in  what
sense the apostle uses the figure here is not
known. Quite likely it is in the sense which was
most common at that time, as the best of its kind.
Thus he uses it, Romans viii., 23: " But we have
the first fruits of the spirit,"-the best gifts of the
spirit, as the context clearly shows. James, chapter i., I8, uses it in the same sense when he calls
Christians "a kind of first fruits of his creatures."
It may be equivalent to the phrase in Acts
xxvi., 33: "The first that should rise from the
dead," and it may mean that Christ was the first
to rise from the dead with such public demonstrations as to confirm the truth of an after life. How
public and convincing these were, he enumerates
in the beginning of his argument. In Colossians
i., I8, he calls Christ " the beginning, the first-born
from the dead," and the same idea is used, Rev. i.,
5, where he is called "the first-begotten of the
dead." But, in whatever sense it may be used,
there is no authority in the Bible for the interpretation which uses it in the sense of an earnest or
pledge, or an example or pattern. The latter it
could not be, for his body saw no corruption, and
if the appearances which are recorded were his




118                  FIRS T FRUITS.
real fleshly body, it was all deformed by the
wounds of the crucifixion.*
The entire argument of the first part of this
chapter is to show that the resurrection of the
dead, that anastasis which implies living hereafter,
is a fundamental doctrine of Christianity, and that
the Corinthians had  been so instructed, and  had
so believed. To deny this doctrine now was to
renounce everything which appertained to the
* A writer of some celebrity, in the Methodist Quarterly for I873,
p. 638 gives the best argument for a bodily resurrection, predicated
upon "the first fruits," that we have ever met.  It is this: " If the
resurrection of Christ bears the same relation to the masses as does
the first sheaf to the harvest, the work is sure; for the first sheaf
could not be gathered till the harvest had reached a point that placed
the whole beyond accident. The harvest was as certain as' the first
fruits of them that slept."'" This is slightly reasoning in a circle;
proving the resurrection of all bodies by the certainty of the harvest
after the first sheaf, and then proving the certainty of the harvest by
the certainty of the " first fruits of them that slept." But as it is
the best that can be done with the text we do not complain. The
italics are the author's, indicating the strong point of his argument.
Then, alas for the masses! The argument may be conclusive to
those who never saw a harvest gathered, and it must be, for this is
the usual way of arguing from "the first fruits," whereas, there is
not a farmer's boy fifteen years of age who does not know that often
after gathering "the first sheaf" most of the entire harvest is lost
by some of the many foes from which it is never safe until securely
housed.
If the resurrection of the bodies of men can be proven by nothing
better than this (and it is an argument with which its advocates usually begin and end), then nothing is more contingent and uncertain. A
farmer would laugh at a city philosopher who, passing as "the first
sheaf" was gathered, would stop to assure him that "the whole is
now beyond accident."
But there is not an instance in the Old Testament, or in the New,
in which "the first fruits" is used in the sense of an earnest, or
pledge, or pattern. If the whole harvest were to be given to the
priests, then the " first sheaf" might be considered an earnest. As
a gift from God to man, if there were a pledge, either by revelation
or by experience, that " the whole harvest should be considered beyond accident" whenever "the first sheaf" was gathered, then "the
first fruits" might be an earnest or a pattern, or both; but there is
no such revelation, and there is no such experience.




MA TERRALISM DENO UNCED.         119
Christian system, for if the dead live not, then
Christ.lives not, hence "your faith is vain, and
ye are yet in your sins,' for there is no forgiveness of sins except through Christ, to give
"assurance" of whose power to forgive sins
God raised Him from the dead.
He proceeds, then, to affirm that if this doctrine be eliminated from  the system, there is
nothing left worth embracing. In his daily conflicts, which were such that he might be said to
die daily, nothing could sustain him but the hope
of living hereafter.  Better eat, drink, and be
merry, the few days of life, than to endure such
conflicts, if the dead rise not.
The second part of this chapter is devoted to
an effort to disabuse the minds of the Corinthian
church on the mode of that immortality. Some,
at least, had assumed that the present body would
be, in some way, connected with the future life,
and asked, "with what body do they come?"
Doubtless they were pressing the materialistic
view of the subject, with the logical results of
their creed, as the Sadducees had done; and,
failing of a satisfactory answer, they had, like the
Sadducees, come to deny the resurrection, the
anastasis, or immortality, altogether. The question is identical in essence with that brought to
Christ, and the answer proceeds on the same
hypothesis, that their error is the legitimate
result of their misapprehending the nature of the
future life; albeit, Paul is not quite as polite as
Jesus was in his method of introducing his argument. He calls the man a fool who expects to
apply the laws of matter to spirit life.
As the substratum of his answer, he assures
them that flesh and blood can not inherit the
kingdom of God, neither can.corruption inherit




120           STRIKING CONTRASTS
incorruption; hence the folly of their attempting
to reason upon it from the laws of matter.
Here we sow wheat, and we reap wheat; we
sow  barley, and  reap  barley.  God giveth to
every seed its own body, resembling in every
attribute the seed which has been sown. The
same law, he says, governs animal life. Birds
produce birds, and fish produce fish, and beasts
produce beasts.  There  are different kinds of
bodies, but fish never produce birds, nor wheat
barley. There is also, he says, a difference between earthly bodies and heavenly bodies, they
being as unlike as birds are unlike fish or beasts.
The glory of the terrestrial is one, and the glory
of the celestial is another, and sowing the terrestrial can no more produce a celestial than the
sowing of wheat can produce any other kind of
grain. We sow, for instance, a natural body, but
we do not reap a natural body, for the celestial
body is spirittual. We sow corruption, but our
heavenly body is incorruptible.*
We can not conceive how the apostle could
have proceeded more determinately to disconnect
the future life from the physical of this life. He
not only states that flesh and blood can not
inherit the kingdom  of God, but in a half dozen
contrasts he shows the utter impossibility of
obtaining a material existence in another world.
This body is corruptible, dishonored, weak, natural, earthly; while the resurrection body is incorruptible, glorious, powerful, spiritual, heavenly.
* The phrase, "There are celestial bodies," should forever
silence the argument which assumes that a body must be material,
or at least that the spiritual body of the future life must be manufactured from the material once composing the earthly body.
Angels have bodies-spiritual bodies. At least Paul says so, when
he says there are celestial bodies. If angels can have bodies without matter, why may not man?




BETWEVEN  EARTH AND HEA VEN.    121
As if fearing that even this clear statement
was not sufficient, he returns, as it were, and
restates the case thus: Our present bodies are
made of the earth, and they are therefore earthy;
for the first man, Adam, was of the earth, earthy,
and such are they also that are earthy, that Is,
such are his offspring; but the last A~dam was the
Lord from heaven, and as is the heavenly, such
are they also that are heavenly-not such will
those be who shall be heavenly.
And yet again, as though he would reiterate
the argument until there could be no clinging to
the earthy, he repeats: " And as we have borne the
image of the earthy we shall also bear the image of
the heavenly."  The form  of every verb in these
sentences should fix the time of this resurrection.
"As is the heavenly." If Christ went up with a
physical body, which was transformed into a
spiritual body, so also are they that are heavenly.
Our friends in heaven are now like Christ-as
Christ is. But we know that our friends have
not taken their physical bodies to heaven. We
who are yet alive shall bear the image of the
heavenly when, like the dying thief, we shall be
with him in paradise, though our bodies moulder
in the dust.
Great stress is laid upon the declaration, " It
is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual
body," and then we are told, by the believers in
physical resurrection, that it is the body which
is sown that is raised; the identical body which
dies lives again. We interpose as a sufficient
answer to this Paul's own positive declaration,
" Thou sowest not that body that shall be."  The
figure is the same, and the language is much
more emphatic. Here we leave this argument
utterly demolished by the direct language of
F




1212   REVELATION MUST BE ACCEPTED.
Paul; and surely Paul would not contradict himself in so short a time.
The effort to press this beautiful statement of
the mode of man's immortality into service to
prove that this body shall be "reinfused" by the
soul at some future time, called the resurrection,
has given rise to many most contradictory interpretations of the Scriptures, each warring against
the other, and neither satisfying its own friends.
With these theories we have nothing to do,
further than to say that they all dishonor God in
trying to devise some easy way for doing what
they assume he has promised to do. If God has
anywhere said that he attaches such importance
to the matter which may at any time have composed our bodies, or such as compose them at the
hour of death, that he watches it with special
care, so that that identical matter shall be united
with the soul, after interminable ages, it is the
part of Christian faith to accept this promise
without attempting to account for the manner in
which it is to be done. The difficulties in the
case are not to be wrestled with for a moment
by us. Hence, to assume that there is a germ in
man corresponding with the germ in the grain is
utterly absurd and indefensible. If there is any
promise of a future material body, it is to be
raised, not vegetated. The old Jewish Luz, or
indestructible bone, is as reasonable as such a
theory. Away with all human devices to assist
God in doing what to man seems difficult! Paul
attempted nothing of the kind in this chapter or
elsewhere: but he so states the case that, but for
a most persistent purpose to maintain an indefensible proposition, he never would have been
quoted as authority for a material, fleshly resurrection at the end of the world, or at any time.




CHAPTER XI.
THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
W 7IHY any other rule of interpretation should
be applied to -that class of scriptures
which refers to the second coming of Christ
than that admitted to be legitimate with others,
it is impossible to conjecture. If we attempt to
harmonize the views of the apostles, one of whom
says that justification is of works and the other
of faith, we do not become partisans of this or
that, but show by the context that both agree
with the doctrine of justification as elsewhere
taught.
We know that, notwithstanding the decree of
the council to the contrary, at least those Christians who remained at Jerusalem never ceased to
offer the accustomed sacrifices of Jewish worship
until after the destruction of the temple. They
circumcised their children and observed the fasts
and feasts of the Jews as religiously as the most
devout Jew-indeed, they were themselves the
most devout of their people, super-adding their
Christian faith to the faith of the fathers, never
dreaming that Christianity was to become a distinct and antagonistic organization. Among these
was no less a disciple than the apostle James himself. Do we, therefore, quote their opinions and
practices as authority for opinions and practices
to-day, in reference to temple service, circumcision and ceremonial sacrifice? Certainly not;




1244    M      MISTAKEN  VIEW H'S
yet the opinions which they entertained concerning the personal return of the Saviour to set up a
temporal reign are quoted as authority for his yet
coming, although we know that whatever they
wrote or said on this subject implied an immediate appearance. Now, why should we not insist on temple worship, and daily sacrifices, and
Jewish fasts and feasts, as earnestly as some do on
the second advent of Christ, and enforce it as they
do this, by an appeal to the views and customs of
the early church? *
We know  that in opinions and practices the
apostles differed during their whole lives among
themselves, and that the best of them changed
their views on the incidentals of Christianity as
they grew older and found their earlier expectations mistaken, although there is no indication
in their own writings or in cotemporaneous history that they ever modified the doctrines of the
Gospel, which they were commissioned to preach.
As they began, so they ended; as they preached
in Judea, so they preached in Greece and Rome.
"Redemption through his blood, the forgiveness
of sins."
Peter yielded his national prejudices so reluctantly that, notwithstanding the peculiar circumstances under which he was introduced to the
broader mission of the Gospel by the vision of the
sheet let down from heaven, and the conversion
of Gentiles at the house of Cornelius, he soon
afterward refused to eat with Gentile converts,
* " The first Christians had no thought of a history. They believed in an immediate return of Jesus Christ to restore all things.
They supposed that the end of the world was at hand, and that the
last days foretold by Joel had begun to dawn. Thus they awaited
those days of refreshing from the presence of the Lord which were
to inaugurate the second coming of Christ." (De Pressense, Apos.
tolic Age, page 48.)




OF EARLY CHRISTIANS.         125
and received a sharp rebuke from Paul for his
back-sliding; while Paul, though a Hebrew of the
Hebrews, entered at once fully into the universality of the atonement, knowing neither Greek
nor Jew, bond nor free.  No one insists that
Peter's earlier views on the subject should be
accepted instead of his later.  Though these
views were entertained long after that promised enduement of the Holy Ghost, which some
suppose was to give clear and correct views of
Christ and his mission, we easily dispose of them
by the sensible concession that inspiration did
not instantaneously correct the notions and prejudices of early education.
Every Sunday-school scholar knows that the
disciples followed Christ to the last under the
common impression of the Hebrew people, that
the Messiah was to be a temporal prince, and
that they were to be honored officers in the new
government he was about to establish. Nothing
is truer than that their sorrow at his death was
intensified by their disappointment in this matter.
"We had hoped that he would have redeemed
Israel," was the sorrowful plaint which the two
made to the stranger who inquired the cause of
their sadness.
Whatever may have been the intent of the
heavenly messengers who consoled the wondering
disciples as they gazed into heaven on the Mount
of Ascension, their language only revived the
hope the disciples had so long entertained, and
led them to believe that at any moment he might
be expected with the pomp and power that would
insure his success. Is it strange, therefore, that
in their sermons they referred to the " promise of
God unto the fathers," and "the hope of Israel"?
The persecutions they suffered from a foreignr




126       CHRIST MISUNDERSTOOD
governor only made them the more anxious for
a deliverer who should rule in righteousness.
Hence, in their letters, as well as in their sermons, there is frequent reference to this hope,
especially in those which were written before the
destruction of their national hope, in the destruction of their national capital, while such reference wholly disappears in the later writings of
Paul, and in the Epistles and in the Gospel of
John, which were written subsequent to that
event.
On more than one occasion the Saviour himself had contributed to the formation of a hope
that he would soon return with great pomp, and
sit upon the throne of David. His language does
not necessarily teach that. Indeed, interpreted as
we can now interpret it, by the light of the events
which have intervened between that teaching and
our day, we know that it means something else.
Yet, with the views which his disciples entertained, they could hardly see any other signification in it.
The most circumstantial account of such a
promise is given by three of the evangelists,
Matthew, Mark and Luke, with unimportant differences of detail, as having occurred on the
Mount of Olives over against the temple. The
company had just retired from that costly structure where the disciples had pointed out to him
its beauty, adorned with goodly stones and gifts;
to which he had replied that the time was near
when not one stone should be left upon another.
What conversation took place as they journeyed
to the Mount is not recorded, but it was evidently
about the strange declaration made concerning
the future fate of Jerusalem and the temple, in
which, no doubt, he had said that, in connection




B Y THE DISCIPLES.          127
with that event, he would come and take vengeance upon his enemies. Hence, when Peter,
and James, and John, and Andrew were seated
with him, in a kind of confidential way they asked
when these things should be, and what would be
the sign of his coming and the end of the world.
Here are three questions in one, yet but one
question. Those who have a theory to maintain
assume that in the minds of the disciples the
coming of Christ and the end of the world were
to be synchronous, and the destruction of the
temple another event; hence they arbitrarily divide the triple question into two, whereas it is
certain that all were associated together as composing one grand transaction.
The answer of the Saviour, as recorded by the
three evangelists, is worthy of study, especially
if we would arrive at the true import of this wonderful prediction. It was to be nearly forty years
before these things should take place, and there
was not at that time even a remote indication
of their probability.
It is contrary to all orthodox theories of the
character of Christ to suppose that the declaration that he knew nothing about the time is to
be taken in its literal signification.  What is
meant by it is not material to this discussion.
He, however, gave such hints concerning the
events themselves that men could not fail to recognize the sign of his coming and the end of
the world when they should take place. There is
a childlike simplicity in the interest which these
confiding Galileans took in the alarming picture
of tribulation which should be connected with
that great calamity-the destruction of the temple-and we can almost see them draw near
and, with bated breath, say, "Where, Lord?"




128       HOPES OF PREFERMENT
But, after all, how little they comprehended
the important truths which were uttered! Their
minds were occupied with that picture of their
own promotion and honor which was ever uppermost in all their hopes and plans of the future.
Like men from some mountain top of vision
looking far away to some mountain top of beauty,
they saw none of the intervening sorrows and
conflicts which lay between. What could they
know of the second coming of Christ, in the
technical sense in which it is now used? The
idea that he should go and return could by no
means have entered into their minds; neither had
they the remotest conception of what was to be
implied in preaching the gospel throughout all
the world. Their question could not possibly
have included any allusion to the second coming
of Christ as a part of a closing up- of earth's
history. That it should refer to the destruction
of the temple and its accompanying incidents
would be natural and probable.
After giving, quite in detail, the persecutions,
and wars, and earthquakes, and famines, and
pestilences which should precede the event about
which they had been talking —the destruction of
the temple and the city-he describes the consummation of the tribulation in one of the grandest pieces of poetic prophecy contained in the
Book of God:
" Immediately after the tribulation of those
days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon
shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall
from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall
be shaken, and upon the earth there shall be
distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and
the waves roaring, men's hearts failing them for
fear and for looking after those things which are




BIASED THEIR MINDS.           129
coming upon the earth. And then shall appear
the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then
shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they
shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds
of heaven with power and great glory, and he
shall send his angels with a great sound of a
trumpet and they shall gather together the elect
from  the four winds, from  one end of the
heaven to the other.  And when these things
begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up
your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh."
[Strong's Harmony.]
No historic fact is better established than that
the disciples themselves and the Christians of
that generation received these predictions as
referring to Jerusalem  and the temple.  Ever
Christian expositor and the most reliable Jewish
historians agree that when, under Titus, about
thirty-six years afterwards, the city was invested
and there were times of tribulation, "distress of
nations and perplexity," the Christians who were
in Jerusalem, warned by this prophecy, availed
themselves of a temporary withdrawal of the
investing army and escaped, as here admonished,
and perished not in the general overthrow.
The thoughtful Bible scholar will not fail to
notice the similarity of imagery existing in this
and the language of Paul in his letters to the
Thessalonians, written some twenty odd years
later, and yet some fifteen or sixteen years before
their fulfillment. With his ardent Jewish patriotism, and partaking, in common with his brethren,
of the "hope of the fathers," he could not avoid
entertaining the opinion that "this same Jesus
would in like manner return" and fulfill "the
promise to the fathers," confirmed by his own
repeated promises as they understood them.




130       THE DA Y OF THE LORD.
Hence, after twenty years' experience in the
spiritual benefits of Christ's passion and the corroborating influences of the Holy Ghost, he still
clings to a temporal Messiahship, which should
at no great distance of time be ushered in with
the sublime accompaniments which the Lord himself had portrayed, and which had been handed
over to Paul by those who heard Him: "For the
Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a
shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with
the trump of God..    The Lord Jesus
shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty
angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them
that know not God and that obey not the Gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Peter uses, substantially, the same form of
speech in the third chapter of his second Epistle
when referring to the same promise of the
Saviour: "The day of the Lord will come as
a thief in the night; in which the heavens shall
pass away with a great noise, and the elements
shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth also
and the works that are therein shall be burned
up.         Looking for and hasting unto the
day of God wherein the heavens, being on fire,
shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt
with fervent heat." But all this means nothing
if it does not refer to an event close at hand.
Peter so understood it himself, and so it was
recorded: "Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you
look for such things, be diligent that you may
be found of him in peace."
Is it consistent with the common notions of
inspiration that the ultimate destruction of the
earth and the heavens should be revealed, and
that it should be revealed as being near at hand
when it was thousands of years off? The event




PROPHE TIC WRITING.           131
here looked for did occur in less than five years
from this writing, and in the manner described
according to the poetic style of such descriptions.
This high-wrought style of prophetic writing
was familiar to the Jews. Isaiah had used it
when describing a similar event, eight hundred
years before: "Howl ye, for the day of the Lord
is at hand. It shall come as a destruction from
the Almighty....  Behold the day of the
Lord cometh, cruel, both with wrath and fierce
anger, to lay the land desolate.       For the
stars of heaven and the constellations thereof
shall not give their light. The sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not
cause her light to shine. And I will punish the
world for their evil and the wicked for their
iniquity...   I will shake the heavens and
the earth shall remove out of her place in the
wrath of the Lord of hosts, and in the day of his
fierce aner."  Isaiah, xiii., 6, 13.
Every idea that is contained in Paul and in
Peter and in Christ's discourse is contained in
this prophecy of Isaiah. He speaks of the day
of the Lord-that means, of course, it is claimed,
the Day of Judgment. If it does in Peter it does
in Isaiah, for the form of speech is identical. With
Isaiah as with Peter it was at hand, close by. It
was to "lay the land desolate," and " remove the
earth out of her place." He does not say by fire,
but it matters not; it was to be destroyed. The
heavens were to be shaken in Isaiah; they were
to be dissolved in Peter, and to pass away with
a great noise. The stars of heaven and the sun
and moon were to be darkened with Isaiah. In
Christ's prediction the sun was to be darkened
and the moon turned to blood.




13 2       PROPIE CIES OF CHRIST.
Why should there be an effort to apply these
New Testament prophecies to something even yet
future and not that of Isaiah also? The style
is identical and they refer to similar events.
One was fulfilled in the overthrow of Babylon,
the other in the destruction of Jerusalem. Isaiah
fixes the application of his prediction by saying,
"'And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, shall be as
when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.'
Christ fixes the application of his prediction in
a like definite manner. After predicting wars
and rumors of wars, and persecution, and the
abomination of desolation, and false Christs, the
sun and moon darkened, the stars falling from
heaven, the sign of the Son of Man in heaven,
the Son of Man coming in clouds, the sound of a
trumpet, the gospel preached in all the world, the
gathering together of the elect from one end of
the heaven to the other-after all of these which
are so often claimed as belonging to that period
called the end of the world, Christ says, " This
generation shall not pass till ALL THESE THINGS
be fulfilled." Let Christ be his own expositor!
We repeat that all these things were fulfilled
during that generation-Paul's and Peter's, as
well as Christ's predictions; for they all referred
to the same events.
It will not do to say that Christ spoke of
the " end of the world," for every scholar knows
that that phrase had a local or provincial meaning which limited it to the Roman empire or
the end of that age, as we shall show hereafter.
Besides, what notion could those ambitious
followers of the Saviour have of such an event
as the burning up of the world, just at the time
in which they hoped to realize the fruition of all
their ambitious purposes? The end of the world,




IDEAS OF THE  DISCIPLES.             133
in the sense of dogmatic theology, would have
been the knell of their most cherished plans.
No son of David, sitting on the restored throne
of David, with themselves his chief officers, would
have inspired their hopes if they thought that
the world was to end just at that time.
Suppose it to be true, as it certainly is, that
until after the destruction of Jerusalem the disciples accepted the promise of the Saviour as so
personal that they each expected to share in the
honors of that temporal kingdom which he should
set up on his promised return; and suppose it
to be true, as it certainly is, that their faith in
their personal interest in this event was such
that they had so literally construed the many
promises of the Saviour that they believed that
if one or more of them should die before its fulfillment they would be raised from their graves
in order to participate in this grand consummation of their hopes; all this does not prove that
their hopes were well-founded any more than the
unanimity of their faith in their personal promotion to places of honor, in the kingdom  which
they supposed Christ would establish, proved
them correct in regard to that hope.*
The Epistles to the Thessalonians were written
about sixteen years before the invasion of Titus,
and while this daily expectation of the promise
of the Saviour was yet common among all
Christians. But Paul lived to entertain quite
* " The destruction of Jerusalem was to enlarge the views of the
Christians as to the future of the Church, and to give infinite expansion to the horizon of prophecy. They had now been living in daily
expectation of the end of the world, and the immediate return of
Christ." (De Pressense, Apostolic Age, page 407.)
"The expectation of his immediate return in glory was then
general. They thought that at any moment He might appear in the
clouds, to judge the world." (Ibid, page 2I7.)




134         70yN'S CHANGE OF VIEWS.
another view of the matter, as we shall see, while
none of the apostles who wrote subsequent to the
destruction of Jerusalem make any reference to
the second coming of Christ, in the sense referred
to by Paul in these cpistles.*
John's gospel was written twenty years after
the destruction of Jerusalem, and is among the
latest of the several letters and essays which were
gathered together long afterward to constitute
the New Testament. Whatever may have been
the immediate occasion of its production, it is not
probable that he would have wholly omitted to
mention so important a speech of the Saviour if,
in his mind, any part of it yet referred to a future
event so absorbing in its nature as the second
coming of Christ to judge the world must have
appeared to him. He was one of the four to
whom it was delivered, and he shared, with his
brother disciples, the awe which its fearful predictions inspired.  But now  more than  a half
century  had  passed  since  he  sat with  that
company, "over against the temple." Its fearful
revolutions and bitter persecutions had not only
swept away the companions of his earlier life, but
Jerusalem  was a desolation, and, true to the prediction of the Saviour, and to the visions granted
to himself on the isle of Patmos, the beautiful
temple had perished amidst those terrible con* "The views of the apostle as to the nearness of the closing
period of history seem to have undergone some modifications. In
the first stage of his career, he supposes that but a very few years
will intervene before the coming of the day of the Lord. He is even
persuaded that it will arrive before his own death. Subsequently, in
the Roman prison, on the eve of sealing his testimony with his blood,
lhe receives new light. This is very evident from his epistle to the
Philippians,' For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to
depart and be with Christ, which is far better.'" (De Pressense, Apos.
to/ic Age, page 286.)




PA UL'S MISTAKES.           135
vulsions which were but feebly portrayed in the
language of Christ, and in John's own visions of
wrathful vials, and the white and the red horses
and their riders, and the angel with one foot on
sea and the other on the land swearing that time
should be no longer.
In these fifty years he had learned that there
was a higher honor awaiting the sons of Zebedee than that sought for them by their ambitious mother, to sit one on the right hand and
the other on the left, in the kingdom which she
and they expected would soon be set up. While
there is no allusion whatever in his Gospel to
the prediction so minutely described by' others,
there is in the Epistles a reference to the appearance of the Saviour, and what we shall then be
-not mere attendants, but like him, for we shall
see him as he is; —not as he will be, or as he
was, or even as we think him to be, but as he
Is!
No doubt, at the time of writing his Epistles
to the Thessalonians Paul did expect, in common with the Christians of his times, that Christ
was about to fulfill the promise made by the
angels at the time of the ascension, and in the
manner which their ambitious imaginings had
prescribed; but we have seen that he and they
were mistaken in the purport of the words of
Christ, although, a few years after the death of
this apostle, Christ did come and fulfill his promise; and he fulfilled their expectations as literally
as he carried out the poetic portions of the prediction, and as literally as was fulfilled the prophecy of the sounding of a trumpet and the
darkening of the heavens, and the falling of the
stars. And all these were as literally fulfilled in
the destruction of Jerusalem as the correspond



13G      INCONSrJSTENT ARGUIENTS.
ing poetic figures of Isaiah were fulfilled in the
destruction of Babylon. Yet there are not wanting those who argue that because the literal
stars did not fall at the destruction of Jerusalem therefore the prediction must yet be unfulfilled, and it must therefore relate to the end of
the world! They do not argue that because
in the overthrow of Babylon the stars of
heaven and the constellations thereof were to
cease to give light, and the world and the wicked
were to be punished, and it was not done, therefore the prophecy was not fulfilled.
After all, how strangely some men sink all
their common sense and their education in maintaining some of their theological notions! To an
age which regarded the stars as mere atoms, not
any larger than hail stones, and mere attendants
upon the earth, it was possible to conceive of
such a thing as the falling of stars as a literal fact;
but since science has demonstrated that the smallest fixed star is millions of times larger than our
earth, the idea of their alt calling to the earth
is too absurd to command respectable contempt;
yet there are educated men who look for this
very thing, and as firmly believe it will come
as they believe anything spoken of in the Bible.
Expositors lose our respect when they say,
speaking of this prediction: Here its application
to Jerusalem ends, and there its application to
the end of the world begins; —that was fulfilled in
the destruction of Jerusalem, but this relates to
the end of the world, the day of the Lord; and
we are inclined to believe that they do not much
respect themselves; certainly they do not respect each other, for no two fix the dividing line
at the same place.
Suppose that we do eliminate from the teach



TING OF iVA TION1L ELEME-NTS.   137
ings of Paul, and Peter, and James, so much as
was evidently tinged by their Jewish prejudices
and national hopes, and suppose that we regard as
merely uninspired opinions those passages which
imply a re-appearance of the dead (but not the
bodies of the dead) at the time of his coming, we
do no more than Second Adventists do when they
eliminate apostolic opinions as to the nearness of
that coming. We believe the apostles were right
as to the nearness of his coming, but wrong as to
some of their notions of the details of that coming. Second Adventists believe they were wrong
as to the time of his coming, but so eminently
correct as to the details of his coming that they
are prepared to anathematize those who dare
to question the correctness of those opinions.
Neither do we worse than  every American
patriot does when he eliminates Paul's notion
of the sin of rebellion, or some of his notions
on slavery, or his rules for greeting one another
with a holy kiss, not to mention many other
things which were evidently the utterances of
his peculiar surroundings.
We have already alluded to the universal con.
cessions of scholars that the words rendered end
of the world should be rendered end of the age,
or end of the present order of things. The lan,
guage of Christ, at the temple, must have been a
surprise to those disciples who had with so much
satisfaction pointed out the beauty and costliness
of that building, when he announced that the
time was near at hand when not one stone should
be left upon another.  No wonder, therefore,
that they sought an early opportunity for an
explanation, in the triple-single question we have
already quoted.
Having never dreamed that the death of




138      A QUESTION AND ANSWER.
Christ would be any different from the death of
any other great personage, and feeling sure that
even that would be delayed until he should have
set up the kingdom of great David's greater Son,
how could they attach to the coming of Christ
any such notion as that now attached to it by
Second Adventists?  Groaning under the yoke
of a foreign oppressor, from which, in their imaginations, they were to be delivered by the inauguration of this new king; and believing that
each of them would occupy an important place
under the new government; and inferring from
what had been said that the national calamity
would be somehow connected with the overthrow of this oppressor; it was exactly in the
spirit of the impatient Psalmist who, when similarly situated, exclaimed: "Lord, how long shall
the wicked triumph?" that they asked, "What
shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of
the present system  of oppression and wrongof the present order of things?"
Any other construction of this question is forced
and unnatural; for they were certainly not looking for a destruction of the earth, anda winding
up of all temporalities just at the moment that
they should at once realize the hope of Israel,
and attain to the acme of their personal ambitions.
The Saviour evidently so understood them,
and he answers accordingly, though he predicts
coming events of a very different character from'what they had anticipated. He portrays a degree
of tribulation such as earth had never seen, and
then adds that his gospel should first be preached
in all the world-in all the inhabited parts of the
world, as the original word always means. It is
a different word from that just used by the dis



SIGNS AND PREDICTIONS.               133
ciples, and  erroneously  translated  world.  The
two are never used interchangeably in good
Greek.  Mark's recollection  of the  word  used
was "among all nations."
That the Gospel was so preached even before
Paul's death we have Paul's testimony. In Col.
i.. 23. he says: "The  Gospel was preached to
every creature under the whole heaven," showing that, according to the views of the apostles
themselves, at least that much of the preliminary
events of that wonderful prediction had taken
place, preparatory to the great event which was
to follow. No wonder, therefore, that they constantly looked for the Saviour, and said evermore,
"The coming of the Lord draweth nigh."
We admit that the most literal meaning of the
language of the two men* who accosted the wondering disciples on Mount Olivet implies a personal return of the Saviour in a form visible to
them: " This same Jesus, which is taken up from
you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as
ye have seen him go into heaven." (Acts i., I I.)
Then he must be visible to them only, for this
Jesus, since his death, had been seen only by his
disciples, and by them only on chosen occasions.
Yet such a return leaves out all of the usual
fillings of the picture which tradition has thrown
* " May they not have been the two men who were with Christ on
the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses and Elias?" (Whedon's Notes
on Acts.)
We answer, Yes, or any other two men. David and Samuel,
Daniel and Isaiah, or Moses and Joshua. It is just what we should
expect of any of the good men who had lived and died, and who still
live, as Christ teaches that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob do. Two
men is the exact meaning of the sacred writers. The time will
come, and not far hence, when Scripture expositors will not find it
necessary to substitute angels for men in such Scriptures. They were
men, not ghosts nor angels, just men, nothing more or less.




140          TIE L ORD'S COM:ING.
around that event, so insufficiently authorized by
the Scriptures. Here we have no trumpet, no
burning worlds, no falling stars, no legions of
angels, no setting of thrones, no judgment. The
manner of this event is sublime in its simplicity
and silence, and he was to come in like manner.
If this text refers at all to a personal return
of the Saviour it is absolutely fatal to the popular theory. If it proves anything, it proves too
much for those who introduce it as a witness.
No one passage is more directly opposed to the
popular notions of that event.  That noiseless
ascension, that friendly cloud, cannot be transformed into the manner which it is assumed will
attend the opening of graves and the burning
of worlds.
But is anything more taught by this than is
intended by Christ's own words: " I will come
and receive you to myself"? (John xiv., 3). Is
it not the same thing?  If not, why not?  Yet
it would be such an outrage upon the evident
meaning of Christ to wrest this text from its
surroundings, and make it tributary to the doctrine of Second Adventists, that Dr. Adam
Clarke, himself a Second Adventist, says it
means: "I will come again after my resurrection, and give you the fullest assurance of this
state of blessedness, and confirm you in the
faith by my grace and the effusion of my
spirit."
But if all this did not remove the passage
from the list of proof texts, and even if it were
tenfold more positive in its language, still it
would not be admissible to prove the second
coming of Christ by it alone, in opposition to
the otherwise uniform teachings of inspiration.
That method of interpretation is no longer tol



PROPHETIC PHRASES.           141
erated in good society. It might have answered
a hundred years ago, when it was customary to
comfort the elect by learned discourses from the
Scripture: "Jacob have I loved and Esau have
I hated;" to prove the doctrine of unconditional
personal election and reprobation. We hear no
more of that among scholars-it is hardly heard
any longer even on the outskirts of civilization,
among the fast disappearing " hardshells " of the
past generation.
Dr. Adam Clarke, who believed with the
best of modern Biblical scholars that the book
of Revelation was written before the destruction
of Jerusalem, thus disposes of three favorite proof
texts of this dogma: "' Behold he cometh with
clouds' (Rev. i., 7); this relates perhaps to his
coming to destroy Jerusalem.'Behold, I come
quickly' (Rev. xxii., I2); I come to establish my
cause, comfort and support my followers, and
punish the wicked.'Surely, I come quickly'
(Rev. xxii., 20); this may be truly said to every
person in every age."
We repeat that the phrases: "the end,"
"end of the world," " last day," "day of the
Lord," and kindred phrases nowhere occur in
the Bible referring to the closing up of earthly
affairs. They cannot be so applied without doing violence to the opinions of eminent commentators, both ancient and modern, who are
entitled  to  a respectful consideration.  Dr.
Strong, in his Notes on the Gospels, p. 287, says:
"The question,' What shall be the sign of thy
coming and the end of the world?' is deeply
imbued with the prevailing expectations of the
Jews that the national operations of the Messiah
would occasion such political convulsions as
might indeed endanger for the time their present




142       " THE ENVD OF THE WORLD."
institutions, but would result in their re-establishment,  with  fresh  glory  and  universal
authority."
Richard Watson, in his Exposition, p. 247,
says: " Here the disciples appear to employ the
phrase, end of the world, for that glorious manifestation of their master which they anticipated;
one of honor and glory to them, and destruction
to his enemies."
Dr. Joseph Benson, in his notes on Matt.
xxiv., 3, says: "The disciples inquire concerning
two things: first, the time of the destruction of
Jerusalem; second, the sign of it."
Dr. Adam Clarke, on Matt. xvi., 28, says: "Very
clearly the whole passage speaks of the destruction of the Jewish polity." On Matt. xxiv., 3,
he says: "End of the world means end of the
age, the end of the Jewish economy."
But we have a still more ancient commentator of some repute, and whose expositions of
Scripture are worthy of consideration, and his
name is Paul. Speaking of Christ, he says:
"But now in the end of the world hath he appeared" (Heb. ix., 26).  This, at least, shows
Paul's opinion of the end of the world. Again:
" In these last days hath spoken to us by his Son
(Heb. i., 2).
We have still another ancient commentator,
and his name is Peter. Standing up before his
brethren, he commented on the words of Joel,
and said: "This is that which was spoken by
Joel to come to pass in the last days."
We have still another. Christ himself becomes
his own expositor. He says: " The harvest is the
end of the world." Then, as fixing the time of the
harvest, he says: "Lift up your eyes, for the fields
are white already to the harvest!




THE EARLIER AND LA TEER  ROPHETS.  143
Are we wrong, therefore, in saying that these
phrases never occur as referring to the winding
up of earth's history? Explained by Christ
himself, and by Paul and Peter, and by eminent
scholars of modern times, they have another
meaning.  In the face of such authority is it not
almost impious to claim  their use in the sense
which implies a destruction of the earth and
earthly things?
But does not the phrase, "The day of the
Lord," mean the Day of Judgment? It certainly
does in Peter and similar Scriptures if it does
in Isaiah, where it is twice used, and where
Isaiah himself applies it to the destruction of
Babylon. The form of speech is the same in
Peter, and the style of Peter's prediction is
identical with that of Isaiah, and the events refered to are as similar as events nine hundred
years apart could be. Will any one tell why it
must be made to mean a future general judgment in Peter, and be restricted to the judgment
of Babylon in Isaiah?
But a greater than Isaiah or Peter throws
light upon it. Christ himself tells us what his
day means.  "Abraham  rejoiced to see my day.
He saw it, and was glad" (John viii., 56). This
cannot, by any stretch of imagination, be made
to refer to a remote and ever-receding day of
judgment, in the sense in which it is used in
modern pulpits.
With the utmost deference, therefore, to the
learned men who have sought to maintain an unscriptural theory as to the mode of our future
life, by applying the language of Christ in direct
opposition to his own words, we conclude that
not a word of his prediction can be pressed into
service to prove his second coming in the tech



144   PROXIiIITY OF THI2GS FORE TOLD.
nical sense which dogmatic theology assumes.
Even though all that the apostles wrote concerning
the coming of Christ had reference to the end
of time, we should yet be compelled to find an
apology for them. Their language means nothing if it does not mean that the event of which
they wrote was near at hand. But nearly two
thousand years have passed, and the end is not
yet; on the contrary, this earth seems to be
in the very spring-time of a vigorous youth.
Its railroads, and telegraphs, and steamships,
and printing-presses do not indicate the sere
and yellow leaf of decay, but the preparations
for a new life for which all past ages were preliminary and preparatory. If Paul was talking
of an early closing up of terrestrial affairs, he
was as badly mistaken as when he enjoined
silence upon women.  The world refuses to
wind up, and women make excellent preachers,
in spite of him.
Finally, why should we be shut up to apostolic notions of the end of time, even assuming that they  meant to teach  the  doctrine
of a second coming, still future, with the usual
supposed concomitants of such an event, and
yet reject their opinions concerning the beginning? It is not probable that they knew any
more of the future of earth than of the past any
more of the method of its ending than of the
manner of its creation, or of its shape and size.
They knew that through Jesus they were authorized to preach repentance and the forgiveness
of sins, but beyond that they were quite as likely
to be mistaken as other men, on questions and
opinions which were but remotely, if at all, germain to the specialty of their mission.
But there is manifestly a using of the words




THEI PRACTICAL COMVIN.G OF CHRIS T.   145
which relate to a coming of Christ in a sense
which does not refer to the overthrow of Jerusalem, nor yet to the Day of Judgment. There
is a personal application of this form of speech
which has not escaped even the most ardent of
Second Adventists. They cannot preach, or
write, or lecture on the subject without rising
higher than their creed, and being wiser than
their theory. They uniformly close their wild
speculations by a word of sound sense, and say:
"Whatever may be the manner, and whenever
the time, Christ comes practically to each of us
whenever he comes to call us hence by his
messenger, death." *
This is Scriptural as well as sensible; and it
has the sanction of the Saviour. His parables
abound with such exhortations as these:
"Watch, therefore, for ye know not at what
hour your Lord  doth  come."   "Be  ye also
ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, the
Son of Man cometh."  "Watch, therefore, for
ye know not when the Master of the House
cometh."   These  admonitions  are  connected
with such parables as the foolish virgins, the
householder, and the faithful servants.
Even in the discourse which referred to the
destruction of Jerusalem it would be meaningless in any other sense, for not many, if any, of
those who heard him could live to see the event
spoken of. Is it not strange, therefore, that by
Second Adventists, in every case where refer* "The individual death is the virtual coming of the Son of
Man. "- Whedon's Notes, Vol. I., p. 29I.
"The majestic coming of Christ is going on constantly in the
process of history." —ange on Matt., fl. 43I.
" Jesus may be said to come quickly to every person in every age.
Dr. A. Clarke, Rev. xxii., 22.
G




146         A SIMPLE SOL UTION.
ence to the coming of Christ occurs in the
writings of the apostles, it is claimed as a proof
of a second personal coming and the supposed
end of the world, while the application which
Christ himself gives is dragged in grudgingly,
as an afterthought or exhortation?
It will help us to understand the frequent allusion to the coming of Christ in the sense which
Christ himself certainly authorizes, to remember
that death is not a separation of the soul, as a
part of the man, from the body, another part of
the man, for an indefinite but long period, the
soul to wander a naked ghost until a general
resurrection, but it is the man being unclothed
of mortality, that he may be clothed upon with
immortality.
In this light, how intelligible are the most
of those passages which refer to the coming of
Christ! "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ
shall all be made alive."  "Christ the first fruits,
afterward they that are Christ's " when he comes
to call them from the tribulations and duties of
earth to his society in the land of spirits. They
that are Christ's,-those who are watching like
the wise virgins, will be made to live, as the
dying thief was, at that period which is known
in the language of men as death; and they shall
be like Christ and be forever with him.
Even that oft-quoted language of Paul, "For
our conversation [our citizenship] is in heaven;
whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile bodies
and fashion them like unto his glorious body,"
has a beauty and significance from this standpoint that is never seen from any other. Remembering that Paul and Peter speak of the
body as a tabernacle for the real man, which




MORTALITY DROPPED.           147
may be "put off" or exchanged for a better
one; as a garment of which we may be "unclothed," that we may be "clothed upon" with
something better, and of another fashion, even a
heavenly; and remembering that departing from
this we are at once with the Lord, and like
him, and remembering also that the word which
is rendered " change" is often used very nearly
in the sense of "exchange"-" These things have
I transferred [exchanged]  to myself and  to
Apollos," (I Cor., iv., 6)-there can be no violence
done to the meaning of Paul to thus paraphrase
his language: "We are in fact not citizens of
earth, but of heaven, whence we constantly look
for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who
shall change these bodies of humiliation, which
are fitted only to earth, for bodies like unto
the body of glory which was seen upon the
Mount of Transfiguration, and which shall be in
fashion in heaven."
Such a paraphrase makes it consistent with
the uniform teachings of the Bible elsewhere,
especially with such Scriptures as those which
represent death as the unclothing of the man,
preparatory to the clothing upon with the heavenly house-the house of heavenly fashion.
The soldier returning from the battle-field to
the endearments and rest of home might well
soliloquise, "I am only a soldier here and a
stranger. These tattered and camp-worn garments are unsuited for the society of civil life,
but at the borders of my own land I shall meet
my father, who shall change these vile garments
and fashion them like unto the clothing which
he wears, for he is abundantly able to do this,
and he is as willing as he is able," and the
weary soldier would tread firmer and faster as




148        IMMOR I 2ILITY PUT ONr.
he would anticipate such a change of clothing,
without dreaming that the old filthy blue would
become the basis of his new outfit. When we
talk of changing garments in spring or autumn,
and adopting a fashion better suited to the
coming season, we do not propose to make over
the worn-out rags which.we mean to drop
when we step into the new. No more does
Christ propose to make our heavenly body out
of our cast-off earthly body. We know that in
fact he does not do this, for it lies all decayed
and offensive in the grave, and we know that
the soul, the real man, is not a naked ghost in
heaven, for the man is with the Lord and like
him  " as he is"-" as the angels of God in
heaven." Therefore this change cannot be a
transformation merely.
We add that those who insist upon the most
literal meaning of such words of this text as
indicate a transformation of the old body into
the new must take also the most literal meaning
of other words, and teach that the Christian,
being a citizen of heaven, owes no duties to the
institutions of earth. This has been tried in a
few extreme cases, but usually the believer in. a
literal interpretation has found himself in the
hospital for the insane, as a maniac.
From this standpoint how full of meaning
and consolation is that other language of Paul:
"When Christ, who is our life, shall appear,
then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
The cold, cheerless view, that this refers to his
appearing at that remote event called the Judgment, leaves the man in a state of unconsciousness or sleep, or at least in but a partially happy
state, awaiting that event which is to open glory
for him. But, viewed as Paul viewed it, we find




THE TRUE AD VE T.           149
the man going at once with Christ into glory,
as the penitent thief did-then, at that very moment, riot indefinite ages hence. "I AM the life,"
says Christ, not I will be.
John, in his gospel, written long after the
fulfillment of Christ's prediction concerning Jerusalem, makes no mention of that coming which
had become history, yet. he beautifully alludes
to that coming to which Christ referred when
he said, "Be ye also ready, for at an hour ye
think not the Son of Man cometh."  " It doth
not yet appear what we shall be," said he, "but
we know that when he appears we shall be like
him, for we shall see him as he is." Mark the
beauty of this teaching. " When he appears"at that very moment-" we shall be like him, for
we shall see him as he is," not as he was, not
as he will be, but as he is!  The dead are with
the Lord and they are now like him.
Such an interpretation of these references to
the coming of the Saviour makes the Bible consistent with itself, and gives such a view of
Heaven as the martyrs had when they triumphed in death-such as dying Christians now
have.  In this light death loses its sting, the
grave gains no victory, for mortality is at once
and forever swallowed up in life.
And we may add that there is no middle
ground between such outbreaks of fanaticism as
swept over the country about the year I843,
and which has a local existence more or less all
the time, and the views here set forth. If the
second coming of Christ is to be literal, it is
equally literally the duty of every man to expect
it daily. "It draweth nigh," is "at the door."
So that those who "look for those things"
are wiser in their generation than those who




150       CONSISTENT AD VEA'TISTS.
believe the absurdities as to manner and reject the absurdities as to time. Millerites and
their kith are the only consistent Second Adventists.




CHAP TER XII.
VERBAL CRITICISMS-ANASTASIS, EGERSIS-THE WORD OF THE
LORD-RISE FIRST.
ITH a wholesome disrelish for that style
Wt V of discussion which falls behind a display of learning in an emergency, and resorts
to nice distinctions in the words of the original
languages of the Bible, we call attention to a
few words which often occur in connection with
the subject under discussion.  We do it, distinctly announcing that whatever argument may
be found in this examination is merely corroborative and cumulative, not vital. The argument
of the book is complete without this; yet, in
deference to the tastes of some, we introduce it.
We announce further, that while we consider the argument of this chapter unanswerable,
we shall not be surprised if some valiant Greek
should array against it even a greater display of
learning, and completely overthrow it, in his judgment at least. Indeed it will be strange if this is
not done, since for ages Greek has met Greek on
theological subjects with as relentless a "tug of
war" and with as indecisive results as of old
Greek met Greek on the field of carnal strife.
While it is yet unsettled whether baptizo means
to sprinkle or to immerse, and whether the preposition en means into or near by, and whether
apo means out of or away from, we shall not be
dogmatic enough to pronounce all persons wilfully blind who do not agree with our conclusions from the following statements.




15 2         BURIAL OF THE BODY.
In the first place, the chief if not the only
plausible argument against our exposition of the
fifteenth chapter of first Corinthians is, that in
the phrase, "It is sown a natural body, it is
raised a spiritual body," the pronoun it must
have body for its antecedent, and therefore the
body that is sown must be the body which is
raised.  This is sufficiently  answered  by the
language of Paul, "Thou sowest not that body
that shall be." But it may be further answered
by the fact that there is no word in the original
answering to our translator's it. The idiom of
the Greek language indeed requires the use of
this unpersonal pronoun in the translation, but
no good Greek scholar will insist that such a
use of such a pronoun gives any authority for
its use as a personal pronoun with an antecedent, any more than a similar use of the same
word in the impersonal phrases, "it rains," "it is
said," "it is seen," and hundreds of like character, requires it to have an antecedent.
We have already stated that many of the best
Greek scholars of modern times maintain that
the word anastasis always refers to the after life,
and seldom, if ever, to the method of reaching
that immortality, and that, though always rendered resurrection, it never refers solely to the act
of rising, but includes also the idea of living
afterwards, if not this wholly; while its companion word, egersis, is not a synonym, but refers
to the act of raising or arousing, and seldom, if
ever, including the idea of the after life, which
is always implied in anastasis.*
*" Anastasis, the word constantly used throughout the New Testament for resurrection, signifies a rising again, a life after death,
another state of the same person, but never once, that I know of,
signifies or even implies a resurrection of the same body."-Bishop
Newton.




THE AFTER LIFE.            153
Let us collate a few passages of'Scripture in
which these words occur, and we shall see that
they are never used interchangeably, but that
the distinction here stated is carefully observed.
Matthew (xvi., 21) and Luke (ix., 22), in giving
their version of Christ's reference to his rising,
use the passive form and represent him as being
"'raised again the third day."  They each use
egeiro. Mark, however, (viii., 3I) uses the active
form, as including Christ's own power, and
properly uses the verb anistemi.  "After three
days shall rise again." In the account given by
each of these three evangelists of another reference by Christ to the same event, we find each
of the three referring to it as Christ's own act,
and each uses anistemni. "And the third day he
shall rise again."
We find the same careful use of these two
words in the accounts which the evangelists give
of the fact itself. We have the angels in their
statement saying: "He is risen."  (Matt. xxviii.,
6, 7; Luke xxiv., 6; Mark xvi., 6.) Here is reference only to the disappearance of the body from
the grave, hence each writer uses egeiro. But
when the disciples come to speak of him they
say he is alive, hence that strange disappearance
means more than the removal of the body from
the grave. "For as yet they knew  not the
Scripture, that he must rise again from the dead"
(anistemi.)
At the meeting of the disciples in which the
unexpected disappearance of the body was discussed, we have "The Lord is risen indeed"(egeiro) (Luke xxiv., 34)-while in Christ's exposition of the Scripture to them, he uses the word
which implies power and living, hence when
he says, "It behooved Christ to rise from the




154        DISTINCTION BE T WEEN
dead the third day," he uses anistemi. (Luke
xxiv., 46.)
Notice the choice of words with the two men
in shining garments, which can hardly be accidental. tn Luke xxiv., 6, they say "He is not
here, but is risen," (egeiro) alluding to the disappearance of the body. But in the next verse
they mean more than that, and consequently say,
"Remember that he said unto you: The Son
of Man must rise again," (anistemi) plainly teaching the after life, not the mere removal of the
body from the grave. Yet when the promise
was made, both Matthew (xvi., 2I; xvii., 23) and
Luke (ix., 22) understood him to refer only to a
raising of the body, and accordingly use the verb
egeiro, to awake, arouse, arise.
The noun egersis occurs but once in the whole
New Testament. Its meaning there cannot be
mistaken. In Matthew xxvii., 53, we have: "And
came out of the graves after his resurrection"
(egersis). There is the best of reasons for not
using anastasis in this connection. The anastasis
of Christ took place when the Father received
his spirit and when he and the thief were, that
very day, in Paradise; while the egersis, the rising
up of the body, was delayed some thirty-six hours
or more. The rising of the bodies which came
out of the graves was after the egersis, or raising,
of Christ's body. Here we have the active form
of the verb, yet we have the verb egeiro. " Many
bodies of the saints which slept arose," for the
rising was not to the anastasis-the future life,
but merely an exceptional and miraculous event
for a specific purpose.
We find the distinction between these two
words carefully observed in the account of the
egersis, or raising up of Lazarus. When Christ




RISING AND RESURRECTION.          155
spoke to Martha he had reference to the immortality of Lazarus, and said "Thy brother shall
rise again" (anistemi), meaning more than the miracle which he was about to perform. Martha's
answer referred to the same thing, for she had
never thought of the resuscitation of his dead
body at that time, hence she uses both the verbal
and substantive form of anastasis in her answer,
whereupon Christ replies, " I am the resurrection
[the anastasis, the immortality] and the life." Subsequently, every reference which is made to the
risen Lazarus is with the verb egeiro, although
the active form of the verb is used. " Whom  he
raised," "whom he had raised," "and raised him
from the dead." (John xii., I, 9, I7).
The reason is obvious. There is in neither
case any reference to the anastasis. Lazarus had
to die again, as other men, and be raised to
immortality, to the anastasis, as other men.
The same egeiro is used when speaking of all
the dead whom he had miraculously raised:" The
dead are raised up," (Matt. xi., 5, Luke vii., 22),
for these miracles did not procure immortality,
they only restored the subjects of them to their
natural lives. The anastasis was to follow as with
all others.
Let us look at Paul's use of these words in
his celebrated argument in the fifteenth of First
Corinthians, in which the doctrine of man's immortality is purposely and fully discussed.  It
will be seen that the words are never used interchangeably, and also that the distinction we have
noticed is carefully observed. In the fourth verse
we have, " He rose again the third day." Egeiro
is here used, not anistemi as would be proper if
he had referred to his soul-resurrection-his anastasis-his after-living; but, referring only to the




156          PA UL'S PHRA SEOLOG Y
removal of the body from the grave as an attestation of his mission, he uses egeiro.
In the twelfth verse we have: "If Christ be
preached that he rose from  the dead," (egeiro).
This is as it should be, for there is a reference
simply to his egersis, the act or fact of rising.
But when he comes to the question of immortality he says, " How say some among you that
there is no anastasasis?" no future life. If refer.
ence had  been only to the fact of rising he
should have used the noun egersis as Matthew
did (xxvii., 53), when refering to that only.
In the thirteenth verse we have the same
choice of words.  "If there be no resurrection
[no anastasis, no future life-no immortality] then
is Christ not risen," (egeiro). Plainly this conclusion would follow, for he was arguing in favor
of immortality through Christ, whose egersis or
rising from the grave was proof of authority.
In the fourteenth verse, pursuing the same
line of argument, and reaching the same conclusion from the same premises, we have: " If Christ
be not risen" (egeiro) then the whole Christian
system is a failure, tor it is without sufficient
attestation.
In verses I6, I7, 20, we have: "For if the
dead rise not (egeiro) then is Christ not raised,
(egeiro), and if Christ be not raised (egeiro) your
faith is vain. But now is Christ risen from the
dead," (egeiro). But in the twenty-first verse we
have a change of words because there is a
change of meaning. Coming to the subject of
his discourse, human immortality, he uses anastasis, not egersis as would have been proper if he
had been talking of the rising of the physical
body as he had been of the body of Christ.
"By man came the resurrection of the dead;"




EXAMINED.                 157
the anastasis, the future living, not merely the
act of coming from the grave.
Again, in the twenty-ninth and thirty-second
verses we have the same egeiro.  "If the dead
rise not at all"-if they are not aroused from
their slumbers-if death is the end of man. In
the thirty-fifth verse we again have egeiro with
special significance, "How  are the dead raised
up?"  How is that change effected?  How are
they aroused? With what body do they come?
referring to the idea of the objector that a body
must be raised as Christ's body was raised. In
the answer he uses the word anastasis, not egersis as he would have done had he been writing of
the arousing of the same body; and as the sacred
writers always do when referring to the mere act
of raising the body of Christ! " So also is the resurrection" -the anastasis. In the next breath he
again uses egeiro in reference to the act of raising:
" It is raised in incorruption-is raised in power,is raised a spiritual body." We have the same
egeiro in verse fifty-second.  "The dead shall be
raised incorruptible," shall be aroused, waked up
to a life of immortality.
Bearing in mind that there is in this chapter
a distinct denial of a bodily resurrection (v. 5o),
" Flesh and blood "-the natural body-" can not
inherit the kingdom of God," and that Paul more
than once says that that which is raised is not
what is sown, but something as entirely unlike
it as birds are unlike fishes or wheat unlike
other grain, his use of egeiro instead of anistemi
is significant, seeing that he is referring all the
time only to the act of arousing, or awaking;
not to the living afterwards-not to the anastasis.
That the word anastasis, which is always ren



158    ILL USTRA TIONS FROM EPHESIANS
dered resurrection, seldom, if ever, refers to the
fact of rising, we cite a few more passages to
prove. In the selection of a successor to Judas
it became desirable to have one who should be
a witness of the resurrection of Christ, as that
was implied by the word anastasis. Now, none
of the disciples had witnessed the rising of
Christ, the egersis. Probably not even the Roman soldiers had witnessed that, yet Matthias
and the eleven had all witnessed his resurrection, his anastasis, during the forty days which
intervened before his ascension. They had seen
him living again, though not one of them had
seen him rise.
That the word egeiro, so appropriately used
everywhere to speak of the fact of rising, does
not include all that is implied by anistemi is
further evident from several examples of its use.
In John v., 21, we have, "The Father raiseth
up the dead and quickeneth them," referring to
the gift of immortality. Here the verb is egeiro,
but it must be accompanied by the verb which
implies quickening, or giving immortal life, for
it alone is not sufficient to express the transition from mortality to immortality; but anistemi does. In John vi., 40, 54, we have the whole
idea conveyed by anistemi, " I will raise him up
at the last day."
This difference is equally manifest in Eph. v.,
I4, "Awake (egeiro), thou that sleepest, arise from
the dead (anistemi), and Christ shall give thee
light."  The arousing from the sleep of sin is
one thing, the living a life of righteousness is
quite another, just as awaking from death is one
thing, living in the anastasis is another.
In Acts the words, to a careless reader, seem
to be used interchangeably, but they never are.




AND THE ACTS.              159
This difference is everywhere observed. Anistemi always means more than egeiro, the latter
referring to the mere fact of risingo the former
to the living afterward. Thus in 1cts ii., 24 and
32, we have, "Whom God hath raised up," and
"This Jesus hath God raised up,.. being at
the right hand of God exalted."  As might be
expected, here we have anistemi, for the resurrection is coupled with demonstrations of power.
Again (iii., 26), "God, having raised up his son
Jesus, sent him to bless you."  Again (xvii., 3),
"Alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from  the dead."  Again
(xvii., 3'), "He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained,
whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in
that he hath raised him from the dead." Again
(xxiv., 23), "That Christ should suffer and that
he should be the first that should rise from the
dead." In all these we have anistemi, and the
context shows in each case that the aim was to
call attention to the after life of Christ and the
power consequent upon his now living, more
than to the mere fact of his rising —his egersis.
"Should. show light to the people" —" should
judge the world in righteousness " —" This Jesus
is the Christ"-" Sent him to bless you," are the
explanatory phrases.
On the other hand, we have egeiro in all of
the following passages, in each of which the fact
of his rising is the leading thought.  " Whom
God hath raised from the dead" (iii., i8; iv., io).
"The God of our fathers raised up Jesus" (v., 30).
" Him God raised the third day" (x., 40). " But
God raised him from the dead " (xiii., 30). "Whom
God raised again" (xiii., 37). "Incredible that
God should raise the dead" (xxvi., 8).




160          PA UL'S PREDICTION
The same distinction is observed in the language of Paul in that beautiful sentence in I
Thess. iv., i6, "The dead in Christ shall rise
first." If this referred to the raising of bodies
from the countless graves of earth, as is usually
supposed, the apostle would have used egeiro
as the proper verb, as in the examples just
given. But no; he means that the dead in Christ
shall be changed from mortality to immortality,
shall live before that day, not the first thing on
that day as some suppose, and he uses the verb
anistemi in its most obvious sense.
By not observing the proper meaning of the
words used in this connection this language of
Paul has been distorted from its true meaning so
as to give countenance to the popular notion of
the second coming of Christ. In the first place,
great stress is lald upon the phrase, "By the
Word of the Lord," as if Paul claimed special
inspiration upon this one subject, whereas he
means only that he refers to the same thing as
that to which the Lord referred in his discourse
as he sat over against the temple. The preposition en is never used in the New Testament, to
our knowledge, in the sense of by authority., but it is
often used in the sense of according to, or in conformity with, and has that meaning here. Again,
the ordinary picture of the resurrection at the
last day, when the trump shall sound, is that
the graves shall be opened, and the first thing
to be done on that day, or as it is expressed in
poetry, "on the resurrection morn," will be the
raising of the bodies which had been dead thousands, and probably millions of years; then, after
all this is done, and not until all is done, we
which are alive and remain shall be changed in
a moment. It spoils all this picture to look at




OF THE RESURRECTION.          161
the language of Paul in the light of good Greek.
The word anistemi is used instead of egeiro; and
the adverb which is rendered first is used here
in the sense of beJore, which is by far its most
common meaning in the New Testament; as,
"Seek first, [before all other things,] the kingdom, etc."
Taken in connection with the discourse of.
Christ, and taking the words in their most obvious sense, and remembering that it was written
just before the fulfillment of the prediction which
was to be all fulfilled during that generation, the
passage means: "this we say on authority of the
Lord's teaching;... and those who have died
in Christ shall live in their immortality before
that day of tribulation."




CHAPTER  XIII.
THE ARGUMENT FROM EXPERIENCE. THE LANGUAGE OF DYING
CHRISTIANS INCONSISTENT WITH A BELIEF IN A BODILY RESURRECTION. THE FAITH, BETTER THAN THE CREED.
T is a noteworthy fact that the language of
dying Christians, expressive of their hopes
of immortality, is seldom, if ever, consistent with
a belief in a far off future bodily resurrection,
whatever views they entertained on this subject
in health. We do not allege that their opinions
have been changed by any process of reasoning,
or that they have been changed at all. Possibly they have not been; still the fact is of value
in determining the mode of man's immortality.
We cannot call to mind a single instance, ancient
or modern, in the death of any Christian of
whom we ever read or heard, in which any portion of the language of exultant faith, such as
is not uncommon on the death-bed, referred,
even remotely, to a hope of a bodily resurrection.
The instincts of such an hour, if not, indeed,
the inspirations, ignore all creeds, and seize the
beautiful and truthful, in spite of former opinions;
and Paradise, with its central personage, the
blessed Redeemer, and with the loved ones of
life gone on before, opens up to the realizing
faith. This may be light, neither from the Scriptures nor from science, upon the darkness which
hangs around- the mode of man's immortality.
Let us call it light from experience.
If Paul ever taught the doctrine of a bodily




PA UL'S CHANGE OF VIE W.      163
resurrection, by letter or by sermon, as we are
sure he never did, his dying faith denied his
living creed and seized the sublimer and more
comforting truths of Christ's teachings. In youth
he had been ambitious of earthly fame, and had,
as he supposed, much in which he might glory;
but, that he might win Christ, he renounced all
this, counting all things loss which he had most
cherished in the line of his former purposes, and
he learned to glory in the cross only. If, in his
earlier ministry, he had partaken of the common
mistake of the disciples, and imagined that Christ
would soon appear with pomp and great power,
certainly before his own death, (I Thess. iv.,
I5-I7), this hope, long deferred, had faded away.
The twelve years which had elapsed between
the writing of the letters in which this belief is
so confidently expressed and the time of his last
imprisonment at Rome had chastened his early
ambitions, and now, no longer expecting such a
display, he appropriates the best' of the promises
to his own use, and says with true Christian
triumph-" Henceforth"-from  this very time"there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness,
which the Lord, the Righteous Judge, shall give
me at that day, and not to me only, but to all
them who love his appearing."
It is not certain that Paul had wholly abandoned the views of his earlier life relative to the
second coming of Christ: he probably had not;
but it is certain that he refers to the appearing
of his Lord now more in the sense implied by
Christ in his parables than in the sense implied
in his own letters to the Thessalonians. Like the
wise virgins he was watching for his Lord, and
ready to receive him, having fought a good fight,
and having finished the course, and having kept




164    NO INTERMEDIA TE EXISTENCE
the faith. His dying faith sees no half-way place
between him and the society of his Saviour.
There was with him no sundering of the man into
parts, one part to decay in the ground for ages,
and the other to wander, meanwhile, a shapeless,
naked ghost, in some intermediate place of conscious existence, only partially  enjoying  the
beatitudes of the future life. To inject such a
sentiment into this language of holy triumph
would be to rob it of every element of beauty
and comfort. As it stands, it expresses the devoted martyr's faith that the man Paul was not
only ready for the sacrifice, but that the crown
was for him.  "There is laid up for me, a
crown."
We can better appreciate this declaration of
faith in the dying hour by placing it b the side
of Paul's own language when purposely discussing the question of death and immortality. He
says, in the fourth chapter of Second Corinthians:
"For we know that if our earthly house of this
tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of
God, a house not made with hands, eternal in
the heavens." Such a declaration of opinion on
such a subject, made when writing directly upon
it, is worth a thousand remote allusions to the
probable coming of Christ, to take vengeance
upon his enemies and to reward his friends, as
defining Paul's views of the mode of man's
immortality.
Here he says, the body is merely an earthly
house, a temporary tabernacle, a tent for a wayfaring man, but no part of the man himself; but
when this is dissolved by death, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, essentially different from  this tabernacle.  This is
temporary, that is eternal; this is earthly, that




THROUGH DEA TH TO INSTANT LIFE.  165
is in heaven; a building of God-our home. Let
it be borne in mind that the apostle says: We
have, not that we shall have away down in the
ages to come. The entire context is of the same
import. To be unclothed of the earthly is to be
clothed upon with the heavenly; to depart is to
be with Christ. What *a beautiful supplement
this is to the lengthy discussion on the same subject in the fifteenth chapter of the former epistle,
while that discussion beautifies and corroborates
this.  " It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption, it is dissolved a natural body, it is
renewed a spiritual body." We lay off an earthly
house, we take on a building of God-all in the
present tense.*
There is something touchingly beautiful in the
dying moments of Stephen. Amidst a shower
of stones, he looked steadfastly into heaven and
saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the
right hand of God; and he died saying: "Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit."   There is here no allusion  to  a  heathen  Hades  as  a  half-way place
between earth and Heaven, but his vision caught
a glimpse of the Father and the Son in Heaven,
* There is much plausibility in the conjecture that our spirit-life
is to be attained by the rising of a spirit-form from the earthly house
at the moment of death, so resembling the earthly form as to be
readily recognizable by the eye of spirit, and often by genuine clairvoyance. There are instances innumerable in which the dying have
recognized and spoken to those who had died long before, and many
instances, well authenticated, where the dead have appeared to distant acquaintances almost at the instant of their departure, and a
long time before the news of their death had reached them in the
ordinary channel. Possibly, in the ages not far remote, clairvoyance
may be reduced to something like a science, which may not only
confirm the fact of man's immortality, but throw some light upon
the mode. Its facts are not, even now, to be dismissed with a sneer,
or to be treated as exceptional phenomena confined to the illiterate
or the superstitious.




166          THE ANE ARNESS OF HEA VEN.
and to them, and not to the society of naked
ghosts, he expected to go.
The most remarkable feature of this dying
scene was the unvailing of the soul, the unclothing of the real man, while yet that soul, the real
man, could communicate through fleshly organs
with those around. It was not through fleshly
eyes that he saw the glory of God, and Jesus
standing at the right hand of God, but with the
eyes of the spirit man. This he called the opening of Heaven, but it was only the opening of
the vail which so thinly intervenes between that
fair country and those who, like Stephen, are
watching and waiting for the appearance of their
Master, whether he come by violence, or by the
slower steps of disease. It was an experience
too, which was not to be confined to Stephen, but
all along the ages it has been often repeated in the
death of those who have died in the Lord; showing that Heaven is not, locally, so very far away,
and that the man goes at once into the society
of the blest, and of God, and of Christ, without
the intervention of any intermediate place.*
* We find the following beautiful and Scriptural paragraph in the
work of the late Bishop D. W. Clark, entitled, Man all Immortal. It
is, indeed, in very uncongenial company, seeing that the object of the
book is to prove the resurrection of the material body. If this
extract be true, his arguments, though a thousand fold stronger to
prove a bodily resurrection, must vanish as mist before the rising sun.
This is true, as well as beautiful, and the chilly sentence which introduces it cannot neutralize it, nor the pages of argument which follow
disprove it.
Anticipating its fatal effect on his unscriptural and unreasonable
argument, he says, by way of apology: " It is generally admitted that
the full consummation of bliss is not realized till the resurrection."
Admitted by whom, forsooth? By those who are conscious that their
resurrection dogma is in the face of such plain Scriptural truths, but
not by Paul, nor Stephen, nor John, nor Peter, nor by any dying saint!
This is the paragraph:
"The righteous dead are represented as being with Christ. Such




VISIONS OF D YING SAiV TS.                  167
We say that such experiences, though comparatively rare, are not wanting in the common
walks of Christian life. Thousands and tens of
thousands of dying Christians have, in like manner, not with clouded reason nor excited imagination, but in the calm of a triumphant death,
recognized the presence of former loved ones
and of other spiritual beings, either angels or the
angel-like appearance of the just made perfect, all
unseen by others, but unmistakably present to the
unvailed eye of immortality.  We need  not give
instances. They might lack authenticity, with
those  especially  who  are  determined  by  their
chilly faith to put off the day of reunion to that
seems to have been the view of the first martyr when he cried,'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' Such also seemed to be the view of
Paul, when he expressed a desire to be [not in the place of separate
spirits, somewhere this side, but] with Christ, which is far better.
And, again, when not only speaking for hianself, but for the great
body of believers, he says,'Therefore, we are always confident,
knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from
the Lord. We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent
from the body' and to be present with the Lord.'  The apostle here
expresses the strongest conviction that believers, from the moment of
death, instead of being in a separate place are with the Lord. But
where is the Lord? Most certainly he has not only ascended on
high, but He has entered INTO HEAVEN ITSELF.  From these facts it
is clearly evident that death ushers the believers into the immediate
and glorious presence of Christ.' One gentle sigh their fetter breaks,
We scarce can say they are gone,
Before the willing spirit takes
Her mansion near the throne.'
How consoling such a truth! To know that we shall be with
Christ sweetens the bitterness of the dying agony. Death removes
us from our kindred here, but it brings us into the presence of that
friend who is dearer than any brother."  Page I9I.
To all of which we most heartily say Amen! But where is left
any bodily resurrection, if this be true? The italics and capitals and
brackets are all the bishop's. It will not answer to say that the writer
predicated all this of the soul as only a part of the man. He speaks
of " the righteous dead." " Death ushers the believers." " Believers,
from the moment of death, &c."




168 CONTINUED LIFE THE COMMON BELIEF.
remote and ever-receding hour, when the sea
shall give up the bodies which have fallen into it,
and the grave shall restore the bodies which it
has covered. Every neighborhood of Christians
and every age has furnished repeated examples
of such visions, in the death of mature Christians;
as if the Father and the Son would not leave us
without witnesses of the early and permanent
joys of the spirit land.
Nor is the idea of a continued personal existence peculiar to Jacob, or David, or Abraham, or
Paul, or Stephen. In spite of the demoralizing
tendency of that unscriptural and unreasonable
doctrine which separates man into parts, at death,
and sends one part to dust, and thence through
thousands of successive material changes, until a
loud trumpet shall arrest its career; and which
sends the other part to some vast receptacle of
naked ghosts, there to be half-happy, or halfmiserable, until the other part shall rejoin it,
man instinctively clings to the Scriptural doctrine
of a continuous life when required to apply his
notions of immortality to himselff. The genuine
Christian man's faith is better than his creed,
when that intervenes between himself and heaven, and he bids defiance to the great gulf which
superstition and the traditions of men had fixed
between him and the truth. Like Paul and
Stephen, he seizes the immortal at once, however much his education and former mode of
thinking might have led him to a different conclusion in health.
We appeal to the experience of every one
who has parted with loved ones who died in
the hope of a blessed immortality, to say if foremost in their thoughts of them is- not that they
are with Christ: not in some inferior sense, but




THE CREEDS IGNORED.          1G9
in the fullness of heavenly bliss? There was, indeed, a preciousness in their bodily forms, through
which alone we had held intercourse with them,
which made us consign those bodies to the
tomb with reluctance, even after they became
offensive to our senses; but there was something
of the same tenderness towards the clothing they
had worn; and many an unused drawer often discloses to the heart that refuses to be comforted
the little stockings or half-worn shoes of the
angel-babe, or the garments of the more advanced
in years, still sacred because of their former
association with the loved and lost.  It would
not be strange that for the moment we both
hoped and desired to see that form again, as we
had already arranged to preserve many mementoes of the departed; but time effaces that longing, while the union with the immortal grows
stronger as we draw nearer to it by advancing
age, and other indications of a speedy reunion.
There is even in the forms of speech of the
dying Christian, all so nearly identical in purport,
an argument which is not to be despised. The
young and the old, the learned and the illiterate,
all ignore that vast hiatus which the creeds of
men have interposed between earth and heaven.
A few years ago the talented Dr. Olin retired from his class in the Wesleyan University to
linger a few months and die. During the early
part of his last sickness, while yet able to walk the
room, a sweet child of his, some two years of age,
sickened and sank rapidly. One day it beckoned
to the father to take it up. He took it in his arms
and walked a few times across the room when
his failing strength admonished'him that he must
lay it in the crib again. Just as he was doing
so the prattler said: " Pa, kiss baby! "  He kissed
H




170        DR. OLIN'S LAST VIEWS.
it tenderly. Then it added, " God, take baby!"
and in a moment the struggle was over. God
had taken the sweet one, answering its request
as promptly and tenderly as the earthly father
had in giving the final kiss. Let it not be said
that this was the utterance of a precocious child,
or a mere coincidence; rather let us say that it
was the All-Father perfecting praise in one of
his little ones, revealing to it things which are
hidden from many of the wise and prudent of
earth.
A few weeks later the crisis came with the
father himself, and he knew that within a few
hours more he must die. He had been a believer
in the doctrine of a future general resurrection,
and for aught that we know he was then, in
theory; but how was he in its application to his
personal faith? Did he call his friends around
him and descant on the glories of the resurrection
morning, and point to the time far, far distant,
when he and his beloved child and the wife of his
youth, now soon to become a widow, should be
brought up from the sleep of ages? Not he.
Calling his wife to him in a moment of calmness
and serenity, he said: "I am about to die. In
a few days you will lay this body in the grave;
but do not say that you have buried your husband.  Your husband will be in heaven "
This was no precocious child, using language
which it did not understand. It was no obscure,
illiterate, excitable creature, half crazed by opiates. It was the great Olin, the cultivated scholar,
the mature Christian, leaping, in his dying faith,
every gulf which superstition and tradition had
wrongfully interposed between him and the society of his babe, and of his Redeemer; and expressing, in well-weighed language, the same faith




DR. COOKZMAN'S DEA TI!.      171
which Paul and Stephen had uttered in their
dying hours.
The closing hours of the late Dr. Cookman,
of New York, were replete with instruction and
comfort. For days and weeks his conversation,
as it related to the near approach of death indicated the triumph of one whose life was hid with
Christ in God. A few hours before his death,
calling his wife to his bed-side, he informed her
that he had just had a glorious vision. Though
it seemed much like a dream, he knew that it was
not a dream, for he was awake. He had seen his
father, and brother, and child, and many other
former companions of life, each of whom had bidden him welcome to the mansion prepared for
him in the better world. His account of the interviews was calm and circumstantial. They had
evidently been, to him, realities. Is not such an
incident light from experience, which we dare
not ignore in our inquiry into the mode of man's
immortality? Those who insist that heaven is a
far-away country, inclosed with jasper walls,
within which a part of the man is imprisoned,
semi-happy, until after some future general resurrection, will not deny the fact; but they assume
that the soul-only a part of the man-was sent
from that far-away home on a special mission for
this special occasion. We prefer the more Scriptural and rational explanation of this, and of thousands upon thousands of similar experiences,
which assumes that the soul is the man, and that
these men were just what they seemed to the
dying Cookman to be. Dying, they had' been
unclothed of the mortal, material, earthy body
and they had put on immortality, and so were
ever with the Lord, and like him. They were as
he is, they are now as he is, with a spiritual body




172      DRS. GUTHRIE AND McLEAN,
fashioned from a physical body, if Christ exists
now in that form, but not otherwise. But their
natural bodies had decomposed in the sea and in
the grave. The honored father's body had gone
to ocean depths with the ill-fated steamer thirty
years before, while the bodies of the others had
been buried with the usual care, yet here were
these men communing with this man.  Their
spiritual bodies had not been made from earthly
bodies, yet they had spiritual bodies, easily recognized by the dying man.
Of course we cannot prove that the appearances of those loved ones was not an exceptional
visit but a habitual presence, and that they became visible to the dying man as the chariots and
horsemen of Israel did to the servant of Elijah,
and as the person of Jesus did to the dying Stephen; but the contrary is equally beyond the
possibility of demonstration. To the conception
of the writer these unnumbered instances of
spirit-recognition are utterly irreconcilable with
that theory of future life which sends the soul, as
only a part of the man, at death "far, far away,"
to a land from which there is no return, except
when sent occasionally. Our dead are ever living, and ever-present, though unseen.
A few hours later he said to his son: "I have
been sweeping by the gates all day," unconsciously and without premeditation using the
language of the dying to indicate his notion of a
continued personal existence.  Did any dying
man ever speak of being sundered into parts?
It is always I, myself, my personal existence.
The late venerable Dr. Guthrie, of Scotland,
was a theoretical believer in the traditional faith
of his church, as to a future general resurrection, yet, like ten thousands of others, in his better




PA YSON AND MASON.           173
faith he often broke the shackles and stood above
the dogma, unwittingly renouncing it. Said he,
not long before his death, in one of his eloquent
flights of personal faith, "They tell me I am old.
It is not so. I am as young to-day as ever I was.
It is true these knees are becoming feeble, and
these limbs are somewhat palsied, and these eyes
are growing dim; but these eyes are not I, my.
self, these limbs are not I, myself, this is only the
house in which I now live. But it will soon be
taken down, then I will appear in another and a
better house."
When Dr. McLean was dying, he said: "I can
now contemplate clearly the grand scene to which
I am going."
"Dr. Payson wrote to a friend just before
dying: "I might date this letter from the land of
Beulah, of which I have been some weeks a
happy inhabitant.  The celestial city is full in
view. Its glories beam upon me; its breezes fan
me; its odors are wafted to me; its sounds strike
my ears, and its spirit is breathed into my heart.
Nothing separates me from it but the river of
death, which now appears but an insignificant
rill, which may be crossed at a single step."
Dr. Lowell Mason, the sweet singer, died re.
cently at an advanced age. Long years ago, he
had buried his first born, a lovely boy, named
Daniel. Friends stood around him watching the
ebbing out of life, at the close of a beautiful Sab.
bath, but all oblivious to the living, whom he
loved tenderly, and of whom he had just taken
his final farewell, the dying man opened his eyes,
and looking upward intently, said: "Daniel, may
I come?" and then with a smile of recognition,
he added: "Let me come," and breathed his last.
"I thought last night I was in heaven," said




174            BISHOP CLARK.
a dying Christian lady, the wife of Rev. J. S.
Barwick, the day before her death; "and so captivated was I with what I heard and saw, that the
vision has not yet faded away nor is the charm
broken.  I wonder if indeed I was not there."
Most certainly she was, just as Paul was, there,
"out of the body."
We might multiply these examples into volumes, all tending to show that the language of
the dying Christian seldom, if ever, refers to the
doctrine of a future general resurrection, but like
that of Paul and Stephen, nearly always apprehends an immediate home in the land of immortals,
whatever may have been their theory in health.
And it is no answer to the argument which
we draw from these facts that all Christians believe that the soul, meaning only a pait of the
man, goes to heaven. In these hours of Christian
triumph the soul becomes the man, and the body
enters no more into the account than do the
treasures of earth which are exchanged for the
bliss of immortality.
We have given elsewhere an extract from the
book of the late Bishop D. W. Clark, beautifully
expressing his faith in the immediate entrance of
"the righteous dead " into heaven, where Christ is.
We shall hereafter give another gem from the
same book expressive of his belief that the dead
are often with the living. These two sentiments
blended indicate, as we show elsewhere, that
heaven is not, locally, so "far, far away" as is
generally supposed, leaving also, to our notion,
not the least possible vestige of a bodily resurrection, although they are strangely  enough
found in a book devoted largely to the defense
of that dogma.
Bishop Clark has since died. The approach




THE D YING CHILD.          175
of death was so gradual and unmistakable that
he had abundant occasion to speak of the power
of his faith to give him victory over it, and many
were the words of comfort which he gave to his
family and friends, but none are more precious
than these: "Our separation will not be a complete one. I feel that I shall often be with you.
I cannot speak words to you, but God, in his tenderness and loving-kindness, will permit me to
suggest beautiful thoughts to you, and lead your
minds heavenward.  This idea is very present
with me."
Later, and only a few hours before his death,
he said, as he seemed to realize, even now, the
society of heaven: "Tireless company! Tireless
song! The song of the angels is a glorious song.
It thrills my ears even now. I am going to join
the angels' song."
Here is an eminent Christian scholar who was
never excitable, and who never expressed his
ideas loosely, ignoring the creed and, like the
dying Paul, rising above his former opinions,
and in the sublimity of Christian triumph entering at once into heaven, yet hovering around the
loved of life, suggesting, by spirit communings,
as he says in his book, " beautiful thoughts, and
leading their minds heavenward." See how he
says, me, my, I, my personal self, not a mere fragment of a man.
Long years ago, though it seems but yesterday, the writer of this book was called upon to
suffer his first great bereavement in the death of
his first born, a lovely boy three years of age.
The day before his departure the little fellow asked, with child-like simplicity: "Ma, will the
angels open the gates for me as s6on as I get
there?"  "Why do you ask that?" said the




176       PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.
anxious mother. "Because I am going to be
an angel," was the prompt reply; this little
untaught one shrinking instinctively or by
inspiration from the idea so cherished by
many men of ripe years and profound scholarship, of remaining outside of the city of God,
even for an instant. No one but parents who
have been stricken in like manner can realize the
grief of that hour of separation, and no one who
has not faith in the immediate immortality of the
dead can even remotely imagine the sweet bliss
which mingled with the tears of sorrow, as the
bereaved parents said, while closing the eyes of
the departed: "He has already received an answer to his interesting question. The gates are
open for him. He is with the Lord,' for of such
is the kingdom of heaven.'"
In the room where these lines are written,
so recently that the fragrance of the hour yet
lingers, a daughter, just entering the maturity
of womanhood, was called to die. Calmly and
patiently, through months of intense suffering,
she approached the final hour with many expressions of trust in God which would have done
honor to a war-worn veteran. The last day
finally came, after a night of indescribable pain:
cold limbs, a failing pulse, and difficult breathing
all indicated the closing scene. Addressing her
mother, she said: "You will not have to watch
with me to-night, for this poor, suffering body
will be at rest, but I shall be with my Saviour.'
Shortly afterwards, having taken an affectionate
farewell of the family, she reached out her
hand, cold in death, as if to embrace some one
unseen by the rest. WVith a smile of recognition she began to call by name departed
members of the family, and others of her ac



SPIRIT LA WS.                     177
quaintances who had died, adding, after some
minutes  of such  greetings:  "Here  we  are, an
unbroken family in heaven, washed in the blood
of the Lamb. Washed, washed, washed!" and
in a few moments she was in the spirit-world.*
Is it any unwarrantable deduction from these
scenes (and they are by no means of infrequent
occurrence) that the dead live, and that they
* We do not object to classifying such phenomena as this recognition of friends under the general head of clairvoyance, although
so little is known of that mental or spiritual perception which is
called by this name. Its moral lesson will suffer nothing by such
classification, for the joyousness of such visions is never granted to
others than those who die in the Lord. The facts of clairvoyance
are yet too few and too detached to establish any doctrine by them,
while they are too many and too well authenticated to be wholly
ignored in any investigation of mind in the body, or spirit out of
the body. There may be much more in it than we are willing to
believe, while there is too little to command our assent to all its
pretensions.
The properties of electricity and of the magnet were, until recently, quite as mysterious. Who shall say that some Franklin or
Morse may not yet utilize, in some unexpected way, the half-known
but wholly unintelligible laws of spirit?
We only add, in this connection, that while such visions are frequent with the dying, while they can yet communicate with us
through the ordinary channels, there are instances, which are entitled to the utmost credence, of natural clairvoyants witnessing
not only the spirits of other departed ones in the room, but that of
the dying joining the group and departing together. We can not
comprehend how this is, and, while we believe that it has occurred,
we cannot prove it to the incredulous; hence we do not introduce it
as an argument for others, although it has an influence on our own
mind. We believe, with Paul, that we have a spiritual house; in
other words, that the soul is the man, and that when it leaves-when we
leave-the body we are with the Lord, and clothed at once with our
house which is heavenly —with a shape and form, a perfectly distinct
organization, a body if you please, though it be hot made of clay as
these bodies are. Far hence be the notion, entertained not only by
the illiterate, but by some men of education, that the spirit is without
body or parts, a mere shapeless bit of gas or ether! There is neither
philosophy, nor experience, nor revelation in any such a notion, and
the sooner it is wholly discarded the sooner the world will begin to
learn something of the mode of man's immortality, from the light of
experience.




178                  D E A TH IS LITFE.
live in forms that are recognizable by spirit?
Such visions, so oft repeated, and so well authenticated, constitute as legitimate a source of
knowledge in reference to the mode of man's
immortality as anything in the Bible itself.
They are beautiful illustrations of the language
of Christ:  "I am  the  resurrection  and  the life,
and whosoever believeth in me shall never die."
Such  a  faith,  and  such  departures, divest the
farewell of every ingredient of death. It is no
death, it is rather life begun.
There's no such thing as death,
To those who live aright;'Tis but the racer casting off
What most impedes his flight.'Tis but one little act
Life's drama must contain,
One struggle, keener than the rest,
And then an end of pain.
There's no such thing as death,
That which is thus miscalled
Is life escaping from the chains
That have so long enthralled.'Tis a once-hidden star
That pierces through the night,
To shine in gentle radiance forth
Amid its kindred light.
There's no such thing as death,
In nature nothing dies,
From each sad remnant of decay
Some forms of life arise;
The faded leaf that falls,
All sere and brown to earth,
Ere long will mingle with the shapes
That give the floweret birth.
There's no such thing as death,'Tis but the blossom spray,
Dropping before the coming fruit
That seeks the summer's ray,'Tis but the bud displaced
Before the perfect flower.'Tis only faith exchanged for sight,
And weariness to power.




CHAPTER XIV.
COMMON THEORIES OF THE RESURRECTION EXAMINED.
THE scope of this discussion does not contemplate controversy. Our design has been
to state the doctrine of man's immortality, as
we find it taught in the Bible, and as illustrated
by experience and science so far as these sources
of light can furnish any information upon the
subject, with as little reference to the opinions
of others as would be consistent with a perfect
understanding of the question. Least of all have
we intended to array what men may call science
against the teachings of revelation. There can
be no antagonism between science and revelation.
Any seeming difference must result from a misunderstanding of one or the other, or of both.
Having seen how the absolutely universal
opinions of former ages upon some Bible questions have been utterly overthrown by the
Biblical and scientific research of a later period,
dare any one assume that we have attained the
ultima thule of knowledge on any subject?  Is
it impious to submit any dogma of religion or
philosophy to a new investigation? In the light
of past experience, is there either sense or argument in parading even "the unanimous assent"
of this age, or any former age, in behalf of any
doctrine of morals or of science?
It is proper, perhaps, to briefly examine some
of the more common theories of men on the
subject of a literal bodily resurrection. We say




180          THEEORIES DIFFER.
theories, for most who have written in behalf
of this dogma have felt it incumbent upon them
to devise some easy way for its accomplishment,
seeing that Paul had neglected or refused to do
so necessary a thing.
Humanly speaking, it is not a thing incredible for God to raise the dead, as Christ was
raised, to whose resurrection the apostle referred
when he confronted the judge with this proposition, but it is incredible that He should carry
out any of the many programmes of those who
believe that the earthly bodies of men, after
undergoing the endless mutations of ages, shall
be rebuilt and then reanimated by the soul's
returning from heaven or hell, or from some
half-way place, and that the man, thus completed,
shall be again returned to happiness or misery,
to finish an eternity of joy or woe, suitably intensified by this reunion.
The shades of difference between the theorists
who thus undertake to tell us how the Almighty
will do this incredible thing are almost endless.
And no wonder. Having no common basis, and
~the most indefinite common notion of the result,
they war against each other as much as against
the truth; agreeing in only the one idea that
there is to be, at what they are pleased to call
the end -of the world, a resurrection of the
bodies of men-the actual flesh and bones of
this life.
We assume that the resurrection of dead
bodies is incredible, because it implies a constant
infraction of every known law of matter, and
because God has never indicated, by revelation
or by his works, that he would do this strange
thing. If there was any analogy in nature, or
any promise in revelation. we would gladly ac



USEFUL. ANALOGIES.             181
cept the Word of God as conclusive against all
human incredulity or human weakness; but there
is neither.
It is a favorite argument with those who
teach a literal resurrection of the body, to hunt
up analogies; but every one they find turns
against their doctrine.  The return of day after
the darkness of night is one favorite analogy.
But night is not death. The sun does not die
when it goes down. It is not an inapt illustration of man's continuous existence, for
"The sun that sets
Beyond the western wave is not extinct.
It brightens in another hemisphere,
And gilds another region with its rays,"
as the soul, the man, ceasing to live on earth,
lives in the land of immortality.
The return of spring is often eloquently
paraded, if not as an argument, yet as an apt
illustration of the resurrection of the bodies of
men. Alas! nothing which dies in autumn ever
lives again in the spring. There is a live germ,
or a live root, or a live stock, which puts on
beauty on the return of spring, but the dead leaf
or the dead branch, like the dead body, never
lives again.  It may illustrate the continuous
existence of the man which, unclothed of the
present body, is clothed upon with the heavenly,
but it sheds no light upon the future life of
dead bodies.
The change from  caterpillar to butterfly is
often referred to as almost divine in its teaching.
But the dead caterpillar never becomes a butterfly. The shell of the living caterpillar never
lives. again, after the vital part escapes as a
butterfly. There is in this change no death to




1$2         THEE SOUZ, THE MA N.
the insect, but only to its rougher tabernacle.
This transition from a lower to a higher mode
of life may not inaptly illustrate the escape of
the soul, the real man, from  its earthly form,
but it gives no countenance to the revival of the
body thus abandoned, for the caterpillar never
returns to the house it left. It is content with
the more beautiful butterfly life.  The dead
"slug" never lives again.
The foundation truth of all which relates to
man has already been noticed. It is that the
soul, the spirit, the mind, is the man, distinct
and separate from the body, which is only the
temporary dwelling-place of the man. We think
that we have shown in the second chapter of this
book that the most rational construction which
can be placed upon the Mosaic account of creation is In accordance with this view. And after
all, this is the common rational view which all
the more intelligent Christians take, though all
may not have the same method of stating it,
and some may at times even argue that the body,
too, is a part of the man. Bishop Ames recently
expressed this idea in his own inimitable style
when speaking of an old man: "It is true his
hair grows thin, but the hair is not he; his eycsight may be less keen than in earlier manhood,
but the eye is not he; the hearing may be a little
dull, but that is not he; HE is within, and the
real he is ever youthful."
This form of man, this curiously wrought
piece of machinery which we call the body, or
the earthly house of this tabernacle, originally
made of the dust of the ground, is purely material, and the particles of matter used in its construction lose none of the properties of matter
by being employed in constituting a human body.




THE BOD Y MA TERIAL.         183
The fact that this machinery is so constituted as
to propagate its species does not, so far as reason or revelation shows, change the nature of
the matter thus used.
It is the same to-day. We eat, and drink, and
breathe, and the matter thus taken into the body
becomes a part of the body through the operations of the "wonderfully made" machinery of
our physical structure. During the first years of
life some of this is appropriated to growth, in our
addition to supplying the waste which from childhood is going on. For a few years more it barely
supplies the waste, and maintains the man in the
vigor of manhood. After a while it cannot do
even that much, and the man fails in strength and
size, until decrepitude foretells- death. In some
cases this machinery, working badly, produces
deformity. It may result in distressing obesity,
or in inconvenient leanness, or some malformation may be indicated by rickets, or humpback,
or lameness.
We know that from childhood to the grave
there is a constant change in the material of which
the body is composed. Men dare not sleep in
close, small rooms, lest the matter which has once
done its work in the body and has escaped
through the lungs and pores return to damage
the system. It is this law of decay which makes
crowded churches and lecture-rooms unwholesome without suitable ventilation.  Waste or
decay is a universal law of organized matter, for
the repair of which food is taken and digested, to
be'in its turn cast off as effete.
Now, it is a thing incredible that God should
attach such importance to the matter that may
have been at any time a part of a man that
he takes special care of it, and ultimately gathers




184      ABSURDITIES CONSIDERED.
it all together, that it may be "reinfused" by the
soul, and live for ever in an unchangeable state.
It is incredible, because to gather together all the
matter which may have constituted any given
man's body during an ordinary average life
would, as a simple, inevitable, undeniable fact,
make a huge, unwieldy mass for the resurrection
body.
To avoid this undesirable result-we do not
say absurdity, for that does not mean anything
with a man who accepts the dogma of the resurrection in its popular sense, since he defies all
reason in reaching his conclusion, and gravely
answers that the resurrection is above human
comprehension-but to avoid such an undesirable, not to say improbable, result, and to make
the resurrection body a model of beauty and proportion, the crippled, and the deformed, and the
old having been all recast, it is gravely assumed by men of no less note than the late Bishop
Kingsley, that this difficulty is surmounted by
claiming that the body to be raised is not the
matter which has belonged to the man through
life, and been from time to time thrown off as
waste, but simply the body that died. That
died when, forsooth?  Every vital- action is
death itself. Every breath we exhale carries
away dead matter. It is only when the dead
matter of the body is promptly dismissed that
the man enjoys good health.  A healthy man
does not die daily, but he dies constantly, so far
as the body is concerned. When can it be said
that the man died who had wasted away from
robust manhood to a mere skeleton, because the
vital processes had, for a season, thrown off more
dead matter than they had taken on new from the
usual source of supply? What is the specific arti



PHILOSOPHIC FA CTS.         185
cle of death to such a person, but the conclusion
of a process of death which had had the better of
the vital processes for weeks, or months, or
years? Is only that remnant of a body the body
which dies? and shall that which died last week,
or last month, or last year have no affinity for this
last remnant? Why should this remnant be more
sacred than its fellow particles of earth of the
same origin and of precisely the same nature,
which had once, with it, constituted the body
of the man?
The accretions of flesh and bone which build
up the man from the child are regarded by
those who believe in a resurrection of the natural body as legitimate matter from which to
construct the future resurrection body, but
when the imperfect workings of the wonderful
machinery take on a superabundance of fat, or
muscle, or lymph, and the person becomes a
monster, all dropsical and deformed by the unhealthy accretions, it becomes the province of the
resurrection to eliminate all this superabundance
of matter, though to the test of science every
particle of that monster is like every other
particle in its ultimate constituents, and the
great chenlist-Decay-preys alike upon all.
Amputation sometimes removes at an instant
half or more of the material structure, perhaps
already putrid and offensive. Does that remain
any more a part of the man than if an equal
amount had been removed by disease? If not,
then the body which dies may die legless or
armless; and must not the resurrection body be
the same, if only the body which dies is raised?
If not, why not?
If the subject were one upon which we were
allowed to reason, the fact that in the endless




186          A STRANGE OPINION.
mutations of matter it must often happen that
a portion of the body of one man becomes a
part of the body of another, as when one man
eats another, or when a man eats a fish which
had eaten a man, might suggest a difficulty: but
this possibility of confusion is dismissed by the
believers in the doctrine, by referring the whole
subject to the unexplained mysteries of God's
unknown laws.
Pursuing this subject with such results, and
being confronted, though not answered, by such
a reference, gives poignancy to the satire of the
lecturer in the law school who informed his
pupils that lawyers must become better logicians than preachers, for legal sophistry could
be exposed and its conclusions overthrown
by the better argument, while the preacher,
vanquished, could retreat behind: "Great is the
mystery of godliness," and be safe.
The discussion of this subject has, however,
driven the advocates of a future general resurrection to numerous explanations to get rid of
obvious objections to it, from the standpoint of
reason and science. One, giving many good
reasons why the resurrection can not apply to
the bodies of men at all, yet clinging to the
tradition of a general resurrection at some future
"last day," and to the idea of a compound existence, a soul and a body, as man, sends the
soul to Hades at death, where it is to remain
until the end of the world, whatever that is,
when it will be " resurrected," and sent to Paradise or perdition, according as it has been good
or bad in life.
The principal proof of such a position is the
supposition that the Bible says that Christ went
and preached to the spirits in Hades immediately




CONSER VA TION OF MA TTER.      187
after his crucifixion, whereas, according to appointment with the thief, he went directly to
Paradise. But this theory assumes that there is
a good end and a bad end of that underworld,
separated by a great gulf, and that Christ accompanied the penitent thief as far as the Paradise department, and then crossed over the gulf
to preach to those who had been disobedient in
the days of Noah. After this he returned to the
upper world, in time to be present at the resurrection of his body. To our mind this seems
like the most reprehensible trifling.
This manufacturing of a place for departed
spirits, and dividing into compartments for the
convenience of the different kinds of spirits, is
not altogether new; but to make the resurrection apply to bringing up spirits from the "vasty
deep" is rather a novel way of getting rid of
the objections to a bodily resurrection, by plunging into greater absurdities, if possible.
The endless changes of matter, from one body
to another, and the possibility of its becoming a
part of many bodies, are facts fatal to the idea of
a literal resurrection, and have given rise to many
conjectures and theories. One is, that God has
made it a universal law of matter, that when it
has once been in a human form at the hour of
death it never can become any part of any other
human body. This is assuming a law for matter
which is not known to exist, but which is
known not to exist, for human flesh is identical
in all its essential properties with all other
flesh, is derived from the same material, through
the same process, and is acted upon by gastric
juices and other solvents, the same as other
flesh.




CHAPTER XV.
FURTHER OBJECTIONS TO THE COMMON THEORIES OF A BODILY
RESURRECTION.
A1S a matter of fact, we know that in many
cases men have eaten other men, to say
nothing of the remoter facts alluded to in the
former chapter. How then can it be truly said,
that the matter which composes one human body
can never become a part of another body? This
absurd assumption can be maintained only by
the further absurdity, that only a small part of
what every man regards as his body is really
his body, and that all else is mere foreign matter. Any doctrine of science, or morals, or
religion, which depends upon such an outrage
upon the common sense of mankind, cannot
command the respect of thinking men.
The trimmings of our nails, or of our hair,
which we so unceremoniously throw away, were,
only a few months ago, food in our mouths, and
had reached a fitness for this ignominious destiny through what we call "growth," which is
only a comprehensive word for the action upon
that food, of the stomach and its juices and the
other parts of the machinery of this wonderful
structure. While eliminating the matter which
became nails and hair, that same machinery had
separated from the same food other particles
which were dismissed from the body without
the aid of scissors or knife, some being cast off




ACCRETION AND EXCRE TION.      189
through the'lungs, some through sensible or insensible perspiration,' some through the urinary
organs, and some, not well adapted to passing
again to the outer-world through either the
lungs, or the kidneys, or the pores of the skin, is
"cast out into the draught."
Can any good reason be given why any one
portion of this waste ever was more truly a
part of the body than any other portion? That
it took longer for a given portion of food to fulfill its mission and escape to the outer-world
through nail or hair than it took another portion to reach the same fate through the lungs,
or the skin, or otherwise, makes that matter no
more sacred than this, nor any more a part of
the body while in transitu.  Neither bone nor
muscle, blood nor lymph, is exempt from the
law of accretion and excretion. Every part of
the body takes on new particles from every meal
that is eaten, and continues to cast off its effete
matter to make room for the new.
Can any such matter, having a common origin, and all tending to a common destiny, be
held to be more sacred and honorable than any
other part?  The cornea of the eye, or the
enamel of the teeth, is of the cold, lifeless earth,
and passes in common with other portions to
the same end.
Physiologists agree that the phenomenon
called digestion begins immediately upon the
entrance of the food into the mouth of a healthy
man, although some minutes elapse before the
work has progressed sufficiently to be apprecia.
ble by the tests usually applied; hence, it at
once becomes as truly a part of the body of the
man as it ever becomes. The future blood, and
bone, and muscle, are indeed only in embryo, but




190     FOOD, AS A PART OF THE BODY.
they are there, and that food is no longer bread
or meat, but flesh, and bone, and tissue, in a
forming state, which began when the food was
masticated and mixed with the secretions of the
mouth. The gray mass which issues from between the upper and the nether millstones is
neither flour nor bran, but it is no longer wheat.
The manufacture of flour began in the mastication of the wheat, as the manufacture of bone
and flesh began when a like process was undergone by the food in the mouth.
If it is proper to call flesh or bone a part
of the body, it is proper to so call the blood.
If the blood is a part of the body, so is chyle;
if chyle is, so is chyme; if chyme is, so, also, is
the partly digested food just swallowed.  That
which is left after the separation of the chyle is
technically called excrement, because it is generally more speedily passed out of the system, but,
until it has passed, it is in truth, no more excrement than that which enters into the blood, nor is
it any the less a part of the body. Much of that
which is thought to be so vital because it becomes
blood, is excreted through the kidneys, and the
lungs, and the pores of the skin, and is sent to the
outer-world long before this so-called excrement
reaches its destiny through its channel. Indeed,
every particle of bone, and flesh, and blood, becomes excrement in its turn, and passes away;
hence the excrements have all been a part of the
body, for all parts become excrement.
Even the effete matter yet within the body
is as truly a part of the body as that employed
in the vital processes, for we cannot conceive of
a healthy body without its due proportion of
effete matter in the lungs, in the intestines and
in all the other channels of escape, more or less




ONE BOD Y, A S PART OF ANOTHER.    191
ready to leave the body to make room for its
new and vital successor. Besides, much of that
which is vital to one part of the body is effete
as to another part. Having served its purpose
in its former capacity, and having departed to
give place to a fresher portion, it stops, so to
speak, to vitalize and rejuvenate a later if not a
lower class of organs, or parts of the body.
Because a given portion of bone-making matter is effete as to blood, is it not a part of the
body? Is effete bone, passing through muscle and
tissue, probably giving life and strength to them
in turn, no longer a part of the body? It is certain that what we choose to call effete matter, in
itsproper place, waiting only for a proper time to
be discharged, is as necessary to a healthy action
of the parts as that which we call vital matter.
In short, our body is just what we see it. The
bony. structure is not the body, the fleshy structure is not the body, the nervous structure is
not the body, but all these, combined with every
other portion, constitute the body. A body may
be sadly diseased, yet it is a body. It may have
an undue proportion of effete matter-it may
be nearly decayed-nay, it may be effete in
death, yet it is a body.
Hence, the body of one man may become a
part of the body of another man, and often does;
and the objection which such a fact constitutes
against a future resurrection of fleshly bodies is
well taken, and is entitled to all the force that
fact can give.
Among the latest attempts to reconcile the
theory of a literal bodily resurrection with the
known laws of science is that of Dr. Joseph H.
Wythe.  It brings scientific discoveries to bear
upon the difficulties which science has suggested.




192      RESURRECTION BY REDUCTION.
As it is fresh, if not altogether new, we quote
the following:
" Much of the matter connected with our
bodies, during life, is doubtless foreign, and not
essential to their identity. Nine-tenths of the
human body consists of water, as has been
shown  by  the  weight of a  corpse  which  had
been desiccated  in an oven, and of the remaining tenth part much is material in a state of
decay, having  been  used by the vital processes
and now effete, or being cast off, so that a very
small portion of the matter of our bodies can
really be said to be our own.*
" We have seen that, of the total amount of
material associated with our bodies, physiology
shows a very small part only which is in a
nascent condition, or which is being applied to
vital use, can be said to belong to our bodies.
Supposing this small part to be indestructible,
many of the objections to a resurrection, drawn
from the nourishment of other organized bodies
will be removed, for both animals and vegetables are built up from the decomposition of
other beings."- Science and Revelation, pages
258, 259.
This, it must be remembered, is a contribution from the medical department, and grapples
with an objection to the resurrection which is
* "Our own," indeed i Whose is it, if it is not ours? Is any part of
the body too sacredly ours to be amputated by you doctors? In
amputating a leg or two, you would probably take away something
that is neither water nor "effete matter." Would any part of that
amputated limb still remain "our own"? If the solid portions,.
why not the liquid portions? And does a portion of the body thus
removed by your knife remain any more sacredly "our own" than
the portion which is removed by disease or by your drastic medicines? Is there any part of the body which does not, in its turn
become effete?




DR. WHEDON'S EMENDA TION.        193
much better disposed of by the divinity doctors.
It is far more sensible to assume that if God
intends to raise dead bodies, he will take
care of them and raise them intact, than to put
them  in an oven and dry away nine-tenths of
them, and then reduce the other tenth largely,
by throwing away the  "effete matter," and
leaving perhaps not over one-twelfth of the man
to be raised. The argument is puerile in the
extreme, and utterly worthless, further than to
show that there is a real scientific difficulty to
wrestle with. For if God has made one-twelfth
of'the body of a man indigestible by other men,
he could have made the whole body indigestible. If one-twelfth is indestructible, why may
not all be? Besides, this robs the resurrection
of all its joys to those who attach importance
to the body. If eleven-twelfths of the body are
to be dried up in some furnace, or lost in the
mutation of matter, let the balance go! It is
not the body which. we loved, but only a very
insignificant part of it, and that all dried up!
If that is the best that science can do, give us
the preacher's stronghold, "Great is the mystery
of godliness," and let us believe without any
reason at all, except that we think God has promised it.
We were not ~o much surprised to find such
a bungling apology from a physician as to find
it indorsed and amended by Dr. Whedon, in
the Methodist Quarterly Review for I872, page
679, thus:
"When the foreign elements are thus eliminated, and the true body remains alone, it is
thereby reduced to one-tenth of ifs apparent
magnitude."  [Suppose it is, can not God as
easily take charge of ten-tenths as of one-tenth?]
I




194       DESICCA TION UNBIBLICAL.
"But a still further reduction ensues from the
abolition of the alimentary canal and generative
parts of the earthly human system, as both reason and the New Testament suggest."
Reason may make such a suggestion to those
with whom the wish is father to the thought,
but nothing of the kind is suggested in the
New Testament. If the New Testament teaches
any bodily resurrection at all, it teaches that
the entire body will rise, not desiccated nor
eliminated. Pray tell us what is left of the
body after these two doctors have it ready for
the resurrection?  One desiccates nine-tenths,
and then dismisses ever so much more as
" effete matter," and then the other doctor leaves
out the alimentary canal, beginning, of course,
with the teeth, and including all the absorbent
vessels.. (And Dr. Whedon knows that, ages
ago, this leaving out the digestive organs was
repudiated, at least so far as the wicked were concerned, because teeth will be needed for gnashing in the outer darkness which awaits them.)
W.ould not the lungs and heart go too? The
liver certainly would. And then the generative
parts must go also! By this time there can not
be left over one-twentieth part of the man to
be raised. Is this small fraction of the body
the dear old body which is to be so important
that heaven can not' be heaven without it?
Would it not honor God much more to assume
that he can and will raise all that appertains to
our present personal existence, so that the body
may not only be the identical body; but like
the one which is supposed to be so precious?
Certainly this is the prevailing idea of those
who are not learned enough to know that about
nineteen-twentieths of what they have always




ABSURDITIES OF THESE THEOR IES.  195
supposed  to  be  body  was  only  "foreign  substances" and unimportant appendages.*
If not this, then let us accept the plain Scriptural notion that the immortal part is the man,
and that when that is unclothed of its earthly
house it will be at once clothed upon with its
house which  is  from  heaven; that, dying, we
are with the Lord, and being with him we are
like him.
Evidently, reasoning upon the method of the
resurrection of this physical body is an up hill
business. Science does not cast any light upon
it; and the unsophisticated one who believes that
God looks down and watches all his dust till he
shall bid it rise, falling back upon the stronghold, of " the mystery of godliness" for explanation of the mode, is quite as correct as the profound doctors of medicine or divifiity  who propose to simplify the operation by dispensing with
nineteen-twentieths of the body. The old Hebrew notion of an indestructible bone or muscle,
which they called Luz, is certainly easier than all
this, and the germ-theory is not any more absurd.
The arguments which assume the necessity of
such a physical resurrection in order to vindicate
* This theory of these two doctors was ludicrously though unintentionally demolished, a few months ago, in New Albany, Indiana, in a set sermon intended to prove the resurrection of the
body.  The preacher, more remarkable for his talent and piety
than the beauty of his person, having become wrought up by
the inspiration of his theme, clinched his argument (?) by straightening himself up and saying: " Yes, I want to come up, just six feet three
in my stockings, gangling, long-armed, squint-eyed J-.  WV-,
just as you see me now." Brave man to thus accept the least desirable absurdity of the theory of a bodily resurrection! Almost any
other man would have submitted at least to the straightening of the
eyes. We introduce the incident to show that this doctrine of a
literal resurrection is yet preached sometimes in respectable pulpits,
before intelligent congregations, in its most absurd aspects.




196,MORAL ACCO UNTABILITY OF MA TTER.
God's justice and perfect our happiness, are
almost too absurd to deserve notice, yet' they
are the most common. Some men are never so
happy as when they are looking after other people's motives, and this habit grows on them until they learn to assign a motive to the Almighty
for all that he does, whether it be an earthquake,
or a Chicago fire, or the pestilence among the
horses.  His motive for raising this identical
body, with all its parts and functions, has not
escaped their criticism.
Among the many reasons which must have
been uppermost in the mind of the Eternal, they
assume, was the fact that man had sinned in this
body, and if he had ever repented, he repented
in this body, and this body having been a partaker of the sins or the joys of this world, should
also be a partaker of the rewards or punishments
of another. What part matter, whether dead or
alive, can take in transgression, so as to become
morall$ responsible, we have no means of knowing; but on the supposition that matter can sin,
we see no reason why the dagger should not be
hanged with the arm that wielded it. To such
minds there can be no perfect joy in heaven until
there is a re-union of the soul with the body, nor
can the pains of hell be adequate until the body in
which the soul sinned shall be turned into the
lake of fire and brimstone, that soul and body
may burn together eternally.
Another reason which is often given is the
love we have for this body, and the care we take
of it, such that the soul cannot be fully happy
without it. There is much more force in this
than some imagine, for, indisputably, many persons have little joy except that which arises from
feeding and adorning their bodies, and a heaven




THE BODY AND ITS RAIMEN7T.    197
of pure mental or spiritual occupation would be
the direst hell that they could imagine.
"I love this old body!" said the preacher in
our hearing, when arguing in favor of a literal
physical resurrection.  We knew that, already,
from the care he bestowed upon it; and well he
might love it, for it was large and well proportioned, and, in fact, handsome.  Moreover, his
digestion was good, and-few were the pains that
he suffered except those of the gout family. But
we thought that the same argument would require
the resurrection of his coat, for he loved that too,
even -more than his body, for he polluted this
with tobacco, while that was kept as clean and
stainless as the most assiduous attention to the
brush could keep it. One-half the attention to
the mind, the real man, might have made him the
model preacher intellectually that he was physically.
And we thought, too, the coat and the body
were much nearer kin than he had supposed.
The same sheep which, by its curious machinery,
had manufactured grass into wool for his outer
adornment, had, at the same time, and out of the
same grass, manufactured mutton for his inward
comfort. The weaver and the tailor had taken
the wool in hand and produced that glossy coat,
while the butcher and the cook had rendered
the mutton palatable, and thus long separated
particles of the same sheep had come again into
close relationship; but still both coat and body
were of the earth, earthy, though they had reached
their present relationship to the man through
such different processes. Why, then, should not
the coat be raised and immortalized with the
bod      m    li  Dr Whe above 
So'me men, like Dr. Wythe, above quoted,




198        INCONSISTENCIES OF "CREDO."
think that so much of a sheep as becomes "our
own," by becoming mutton and entering into our
bodies, becomes very sacred, while so much of
the same sheep, manufactured out of the same
grass, as goes into wool and becomes clothing, is
only   "foreign  matter."    And  they  call that
science i *
* There are some things in the book Credo which has just come
to our notice, that so clearly dispose of the doctrine of a future bodily
resurrection that we take the liberty of further quoting from it, as at
least indicating that the train of thought which is found in these pages
has found its way into the ranks of eminent teachers, of whom Dr.
Townsend is confessedly one. True, the doctor finds himself tethered to much of the figment which he seems heartily to discard.
Thus we find this incongruous sentence:' The' resurrection unto
life,' and the'resurrection unto damnation,' would seem to be meaningless in the lips of Christ, were not the human soul, at some future
time, to come into possession of a body, in which it shall live, and
through which it shall act."  Whereas such phrases are full of meaning, when we remember that Christ says, I am the resurrection. I
am the life. That the dead are raised, not will be; and that Paul
says we have that body upon the dissolution of this. Where, dear
Doctor, is there a single passage of Scripture which says that the soul,
at some future time, shall come into possession of a body? It cannot
be found in any man's Bible.
Much more consistent with the teachings of inspiration are these
sentences, referring to the doctrine of the fifteenth chapter of First
Corinthians: " We'are not able to see on what principle these pas.
sages can be made to harmonize with the theory of a resurrection,
which calls for the restoration of the old body, particle for particle,
as it was constituted when it returned to dust."... "What is
the inevitable conclusion?  Is it that the same body which goes into
the grave is to come out of it, and that the old material is to be the
identical material of the new body? Is not the simple and natural
meaning of the passage this-that the old body gives place to a new
one?"... "Are we to enter these worn-out, diseased bodies
again, and bear them through eternity?"... "Nay, as we have
borne the image of the earthy, we are also to bear the image of the
heavenly."... "This interpretation of the passages in questidn relieves us at once from the necessity of employing in our
reconstruction the old particles of matter which have lost their identity; which have been organized and reorganized, again and again;
which have entered into other bodies, into the vegetable and animal
kingdom, into the atmosphere and the clouds that float above us."
"We intuitively demand a body which shall be free from the




DR. CURRY'S VIEW fS.                   199
gross materials of the present."... We would change tenements,
rather than be at the trouble and expense of moving out only to
move back again."
It is almost painful to see one who entertains such comforting and
Scriptural views of the future life as the foregoing and the following.
tethered to the loathsome corpse of medieval superstition, and apparently struggling to be free. No Romish dogma has less foundation in
the Bible, or in common sense, or in the deductions which science
makes from undoubted spiritual phenomena, than that called the intermediate estate-the assumed half-way place between earth and heaven.
Romanists need it for their purgatorial purifications, but enlightened
Christians should discard it at once and forever. But for an occasional ungracious allusion to it, one would suppose that our author
had risen entirely above it, entering into the purer atmosphere of the
teachings of Christ and his apostles. The following beautiful sentences belong to a higher plane than that to which Professor Townsend seems to have attained, yet they are found in his "Credo"':
" Is it not true that there is an instinctive and positive demand
in every human nature, for a body to dwell in? Who can think of
the. future life with pleasure without thinking of it as organized?
The idea of a purely spiritual existence unembodied, thus to last forever, is painful and repulsive.  [Yes, thus to last one hour.]
The natural idea we have of a disembodied spirit is that of a wandering, restless ghost. [Yet, some people's notions leave our loved ones
to wander thus through interminable ages.] As naturally as we
breathe we seize upon the idea of a home for and an embodiment of
the soul-one that is perfect and under complete control. [That is
just what Paul says we have, as soon as the earthly home is dissolved. Just what John says we shall be, embodied personalities.
Just as Jesus is, for we shall be like him.] Such a condition during
our future existence can alone satisfy our desires. Any other condition
would never have been dreamed of, but for enmity to the truth, and a
false interpretation of the Scrijptures.  [The italics are ours, and we
add, emphatically, AMEN!]... Human nature, to be complete, must have some kind of organism. [Angels have organisms,
and we are to be as they are.]... Upon high and strictly
rational grounds, we may assert that a bodily organism in the
future life is a positive necessity of our nature.  It is a revelation, not from the Bible alone, but from every human soul. [How
cruel, then, to teach that for thousands, and probably tens of thousands of years, the soul shall be a disembodied spirit, "a restless,
wandering ghost?" One hour of such nakedness would be as death
itself. Let us believe the Bible, and not the terrible Roman dogma
of an intermediate state.]... Dreamy and shadowy phantoms
find no place in the Scriptures. The organisms of the dead are as
real as those of angels. Let us have done with spiritualistic and
Anti-Christian notions which reduce the universe to gas, and our
deceased friends to atmospheric phenomena. We are not to become




200             "B UTLER'S ANALOG Y."
ghosts and nothings.         When we die we shall see friends
and know them, as certainly before as after the resurrection..
When the eyes of mortals are closing in death, do they not frequently
seem to open upon sweet and well-known faces? Do not dear and
familiar names sometimes break from their closing lips? The welcome of friends long since dead is heard in the heavenly world before
the farewells are hushed in this. There are moments when the
physical organisms of this world are seen in company with the spiritual organisms of the other world, and where the blending voices of
both worlds are audible."
It is sad to see one basking in such pure and comforting Bible and
experimental truths, and then to see him drawn back, evidently reluctantly, by that relentless tether, to the chilling dogma of something, he knows not what, but which, in deference. to the creed from
which he dare not break away, he calls the resurrection. He flounders, and apologizes for this in the following unsatisfactory manner;
"But if this spiritual organism be so complete, why the need of new
resurrection bodies? What if we do not know? God says we are to
have them, and this is enough." [The very thing which God does
not say. The very thing of which Christ sought to disabuse the minds
of the Sadducees, if you mean bodies to be taken on, ages hence.]
One would hardly suppose that, having so effectively disposed of
the material body, sending it in his theology, where it is sent in philosophy, "into the vegetable and animal kingdom, into the atmosphere, and the clouds that float above us," we would ever find him
poetizing among the tombs. But that tether, that dreadful tether,
brings him down at last from the pure atmosphere of the Bible truth,
and we find him burning up the world with the usual ceremony, and
providing for the disembodied ghosts a luxury which he thus describes: " Would it not be a pleasant experience, as well as a dictate
of philosophy, if in the graveyard of ourselves and friends, our spirits
should at last meet to bid an eternal and ever-present Welcome
to each other, and a final farewell to the crumbling world and
crumbling body?" [Why in a graveyard any more than elsewhere,
seeing the bodies there have been dissipated "in the atmosphere and
in the clouds? "]
To this we add the following from Dr. Curry, of the Christian
Advocate, New York, who will hardly be denominated an iconoclast
or a heretic or an infidel: "We are free to say that some things that
we have heard and read about raising to immortality the material
body-the breaking up of graves and the upsetting of tombstones at
the' resurrection'- may be questioned without incurring the guilt of
heresy, and that the materialistic renderings of the language of
our Lord and of St. Paul may, without offense, be re-examined. We
certainly should feel free to do it."- Christian Advocate, Jan. I5, 1874.
Bishop Butler's famous Analogy of Religion, which has remained
unanswered for I50 years because it is unanswerable, and which is a
text book in every theological school in England and America, is
based upon the doctrine that the body is no part of the man. In his




WHA T IS DEA TH?                   201
By far the most plausible as well as the most
common argument in favor'of a bodily resurrection is that which assumes that the resurrection is
the bringing up of something which had gone
under-something which had gone down. Dr.
Edwards states the argument thus: "The resurrection is the resur ing from  death  of that which
died."   Others  ask, "What body  is it that is
sown?" and answer, "Clearly our bodies of flesh
and blood," and add, "The soul does not die; it
is the body that dies, and it is therefore the body
which must be raised."
This whole argument is baseless, because
founded upon an unscriptural as well as an unphil6sophical idea of death. The body no more
dies in the article of death than the soul dies then.
It no more dies after what is called  death  than
it died before. What men call death is simply
argument on the Future State, he says: "All presumption of
death's being the destruction of living beings must go upon the supposition that they are compounded..      Now upon supposition
that the living agent that each man calls himself is a single being, it
follows that our organized bodies are no more ourselves or part of
ourselves than any other matter around us... It is as easy to
conceive that we may exist out of bodies as in them....
Things of this kind unavoidably teach us to distinguish between
these living agents, ourselves, and large quantities of matter in which
we are very nearly interested.... After all, the relation a
person bears to these parts of his body amounts to but this, that the
living agent and those parts of the body mutually affect each other.
Our organs of sense and our limbs are certainly instruments
which the living person, ourselves, makes use of to perceive and
move with. There is not any probability that they are any more,
nor consequently that we have any other kind of relation to them
than what we have to any other foreign matter, formed into instruments of perception or motion, suppose into a microscope or staff.
And we have no reason to think we stand in any other kind
of relation to any thing which we find dissolved by death."
Page after page of the Analogy is in this strain. It is the basis
of the entire book. Whatever of value is found in the book is as dependent upon this assumption as are all the subsequent propositions
of Euclid upon the propositions contained in his first book.




202    SEPARA TION OF SOUL AND BODY.
that event-that point of time-at which the vital
forces cease to retain, in organized form, the
earthy matter which composes the body. Every
breath we exhale, every action of healthy vitality
which throws off effete matter from any part of
the body, is death as to that particle of matter
which has thus fulfilled its mission in that body,
and has gone hence by vital action'itself to
become dust again, and to be taken up, in due
time, in other organisms, vegetable or animal, to
thus live and die eternally by the laws which God
has given, if being organized is life, and being disorganized is death; yet it is only inert matter in
all these changes. In many instances this process
of disorganization goes on rapidly for months, or
even years, until that frame —that form-that
body which was once glorious in its symmetry
and strength becomes a mere feeble, decrepit mass
of loathsome putrescence, with not one element
of loveliness; and at last the vital spark ceases
to preserve it any longer from absolute disintegration. Does that body die any more in this
fnal escape of the vital force than when the other
particles of it had died as to that body in escaping
in advance, from a union with vitality? The
body die, indeed! Solomon was wiser than ten
thousand such philosophers when he said that in
what men call death, " Dust returns to dust as it
was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it."
(Ec. xii., 7.)
Death is nothing more, nothing less, than this.
It is a separation of the soul-the real manfrom the dust of the earth, which was at the
moment of separation in organized form. The
spirit-the real man-goes to God its Father; the
dust, to its kindred dust. Death is as predicable
of the soul as of the body, for one separates from




LIKE TO LIKE.             203
the other, each to seek its nearest of kin. The
nan dies-that union of inert matter with the
spirit, which in common language we call man,
dies,-the union ceases and the organism ceases;
but neither the spirit nor the matter dies.
Each exists afterwards in its appropriate sphere,
though never to be reunited again in the same
or a like organism.  Dust to dust-the spirit
with God.




CHAPTER XVI.
THE PROBABLE NATURE OF OUR FUTURE LIFE.
UTJ7HETHER our immortality is attained by
this process or that, both reason and
revelation assure us that it will be purely spiritual and of eternal duration. But what may be an
existence purely  spiritual in its character, it
is not probable that the utmost stretch of our
imaginations ever conceived. Certainly, words
cannot convey an idea of the properties of spirit,
further than we have been made conversant
with those properties in our own experiences.
The language of earth refers only to things
material and earthly, and is probably as inappropriate to the things of the spirit-life as the words
which describe the properties of matter, which
are realized only by sight, are to the man who
never saw.
If in this world there are progressive developments  of spirit-life, each  successive stage
opening.a new plane with its new emotions,
what shall we say of the probable character of
spirit-life in the other world, when at once,
or in rapid succession, there shall burst upon
the spirit the realities of a sphere now unknown to it? That young mother, to-day for
the first time looking upon the form of her
first-born, is experiencing a soul-emotion to
which she has hitherto been a stranger. Her
love for that child is unlike, in character and




CONCEPTIONS OF HEA YEN.        205
degree, any love she has ever known before.
It is a spirit-development, the springing into
life of latent soul-capabilities, which may possibly be only one of a thousand such instances
of spirit-growth which the ever new realities
of the spirit-land may inspire. If no words or
signs could ever open that sealed fountain until
it was opened by the object on which a mother's love could rest, although she knew what
was love for husband, and parents, and brothers,
who need attempt to delineate the characteristics
of the world of spirits by words applicable only
to earth?
No doubt very much of the confusion which
exists in the minds of people on this subject is
the result of attempts to apply literally the
extravagant poetic conceptions of immortality
which are found in the Bible. Speaking of
heaven, John calls it a new Jerusalem, and describes it as a walled city of no very extensive
dimensions, but brilliant and costly in its appointments; yet certainly it would be too much
of a prison house for spirits, if our conceptions
of the capabilities of spirits are half-way correct. Other poets, probably quite as capable of
doing the subject justice, have invested Paradise
with the beauties of spring in the rural districts;
making heaven an extensive plain, eternally
bright, and perpetually brilliant with flowers,
and abounding in choice fruits and cooling
streams of pure water, not always omitting literal wine.
With all this, and much more like it, the
heaven of not a few is to be pre-eminently a
place of rest. They have dragged themselves, or
have been driven, through a life of incessant toil,
and nothing seems so heavenly as a place where




20 6   THE WISH FA THERS THE THOUGHT.
there is nothing to do. Rest from trouble, rest
from  care, rest from' toil, constitute their beau
ideal of bliss, so much so that if it be suggested
that probably spirits are ever active, they shake
their. heads with disapprobation.
A class of Christians, whose mental and
moral make-up finds the perfection of earthly
enjoyment in the excitement of a fervent type
of religious exercises, think that the most
desirable characteristics of the happy land will
be its endless Sabbaths, and perpetual congregations of worshipers, where there will be
loud singing and zealous shouting, not marred by the tones of any huge organ in the
gallery.
To the heart that, has been often broken by
the removal hence from the family circle of the
objects of its love, the chief charm of heaven
will be its family reunions, with a hope that,
being no death there, there will be no more
parting.
Thus on, from the Indian, who thinks,
"Admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog will bear him company,"
through every grade of intellect and cultivation,
we find diverse opinions of the probable details
of the character and occupations of heaven,
observing, as a general rule, that that becomes
most prominent which is most longed for in
this life.
The country rustic seizes most readily upon
John's gorgeous city, with its foundation of jasper, and sardonyx, and sapphire, and gates of
pearl, and its streets of gold. That is the perfection of splendor, in his estimation, and he
thinks that city life, amidst such surroundings,
would be most desirable.




WHA T IS SURE.           207
On the other hand, the dweller in the city,
whose vision is bounded by bleak walls and
cheerless pavements, who never sees a green
branch, or hears the notes of a happy bird, longs
for a heaven of rural beauties and delights.
He would never exchange Watts for John; Let
his heaven be one of sweet fields beyond the
swelling flood, all dressed in living green, where
there are rocks, and hills, and. brooks, and vales,
with milk that is not diluted, and honey that is
fresh from the comb. The little child, who was
captivated by the splendor of a steamboat cabin,
as contrasted with her own home, only played
the grown up Christian, of average opinion and
hopes, when she asked if heaven would. be any
prettier than that.
Many of our songs contribute, no doubt, to
very erroneous views of the abode of immortals.
It is, indeed, no longer taken to be an underground cavern, more thanks to science than to the
popular interpretation of Scripture, however; but
it is a." happy land, far, far, away." What right
has any one to teach such a doctrine?  Poets
are unreliable theologians as a general thing.
Heaven cannot be far away, whatever or wherever it may be. We know only this about it with
certainty: There is no night there; no sickness,
no crying, no hunger or thirst, no death; but the
Redeemer and the redeemed are there, and the
redeemed are like the Redeemer; each a pure
spirit, yet each retaining such a personal identity
that it shall be readily recognizable by fellow
immortals.
There is a beauty in the conception that as
the earth and other planets revolve around the
sun as their.center, so the sun, and other suns,
the fixed stars, mav revolve around still another




208       THE SUBSTANCE Of SPIRIT.
center, and these larger centers still revolve
around centers still larger, until at the inner
center of all material existence, is found the
throne of God. This is not only beautiful, but
it is probable, as to the construction of the material universe, and not improbable as to God
himself, who, as spirit, is omnipresent, yet is
represented to our conceptions as having a seat
of power and authority. These frequent representations cannot be all poetry. At least, it is not
possible for us, in the body, to form a better
idea of him than is afforded by such language
as the Bible uses. But all this does not make our
heaven "far, far away," or intimate that it is not
a place or locality; it only makes it the more
heavenly by conceiving that it is as large as the
universe.
The chief difficulty in comprehending heaven
grows out of our ignorance of the essence of
spirit. After all, what is spirit? Man was created pure spirit, and as such, no doubt, had a separate existence before he entered the body which
was formed for him  of the dust of the ground.
Is it unreasonable, therefore, to suppose that he
shall have such an existence after leaving the
body?
Perhaps the nearest approach that we can
ever make to the substance of spirit is found in
the capabilities of mind, which is spirit encased
in an earthly body, the real immortal man itself.
But mind is hardly local. It is here now, giving attention to weighing or measuring some
material substance.  In a moment it is yonder,
among some ancient ruins, or surveying some
modern enterprise. Now it goes away in quest
of that great center where God is, and then
returns to the sober duties of every-day life.




THE NEARNESS OF HEA VEN.                    209
If mind, the man, encumbered by a fleshy body,
can thus approximate omnipresence, what may
we not attribute to the spirit-man when unclothed of this earthly house?
There is nothing in the Bible-account of the
spirit-land   that  necessarily  fixes it at a  great
distance from  earth.  When  Saul called for Samuel he was not far awfay; and there are not
wanting  instances,  well authenticated,  of such
spirit communings  as  indicate  that  if the  departed do not hover around us as angels do,
nay, become in some sense  the  guardian angels
of those who  are to  become  heirs of salvation,
they may visit the earth without going beyond
the bounds of their heavenly home.*
Dr. Whedon, one of the ripest scholars of the
* "There are seasons when the soul seems to recognize the pres.
ence of the departed, and to hold communion with them. They are
like angelic visitants. We meet them in our lonely walks, in our deep
and solemn meditations and in our closet communions. We meet
them when the lengthening shadows hallow the even-tide. Mysterious and solemn is their communion. We meet them where sorrows
encompass us round about, and hallowed is the influence their presence imparts. Who shall say that at such times there is not a real
communion between the living and the dead? Who shall say that
there is not then a real presence of the dead with the living?...
There is a pernicious view in the religious world, by which the dead
are disassociated from the living.  It was the impression of Mr.
Wesley, that the strong impressions on the mind of Swedenborg, of
the presence of deceased friends at particular moments, was produced
by their actual but invisible presence. Thousands of Christians have
had, at times, as clear and overpowering a consciousness of the
spiritual presence of departed friends as of their own self-being.
There is one other fact bearing on this subject which we cannot
now forbear. It is the affecting recognition of the presence of the
dead in Christ, which is sometimes realized by the dying saint.
Parents have recognized departed children as present to welcome
them, just at the moment of their own departure. So have children
recognized the presence of a sainted father or mother. Also brothers
and sisters have thus seemed to meet each other on the dividing line
between this world and the next."-Bishop  Clark. Man All Immorta4,
page 20o8, 209.




210        DR. WHEDON'S THEOR Y.
day, as well as one of the most profound metaphysicians, but withal a great stickler for a literal
future resurrection (in a modified form, as we
have seen), thus explains away the material portions of the body after it has been raised.
"' While the material particles of the body
are unchanged, the organism passes through a
reorganizing and glorifying change. The same
in. material, it is new  in arrangements, properties, and capabilities.  It will be a spiritual
body, and that body will be angel-like. By the
body's becoming a spiritual body, we understand
that it will become subtilized, so adjusted to the
pure spirit, and so subjected in every part and
particle to the volition and power of the spirit,
that, while the spirit becomes, so to speak, more
substantiated, the personal unit of the two natures possesses all the capabilities that our
thoughts usually attribute to the pure spirit."
Very well; the body becomes pure spirit
after all, only that in some way, "so to speak,"
it slightly substantiates that spirit, yet it is pure
spirit in its attributes.  One can hardly refrain
from asking, why then all this pother about a
resurrection of matter, which is only an insignificant part of the body after all, according to
Dr. Whedon's theory, if in the end it becomes
pure spirit? Is it because God can not furnish
us a spiritual body without having a material
body from which to make the spiritual? But
since the immortal being, rebuilt by reuniting
the long-separated soul and body, and by depriving the body of all its peculiar properties,
except that it may yet "substantiate" the soul,
has all the capabilities of pure spirit, there is
not so much difference between materialists and
spiritualists, except in the delay which the




THE SPIRITUA4L BODY.         211
theory. of the former causes. Whether this be
a coming of Mahomet to the mountain, or the
mountain to Mahomet, matters not.
There is, however, something so spiritual in
the attributes of this spiritual body, as given by
the Doctor, although, "so to speak, somewhat
substantiated," that we adopt it as expressing
views which are probably correct. "By volition
it passes, with lightning rapidity, through nameless distances. It clairvoyantly sees, at volition,
through a finite immensity."
That which follows is, if anything, better still,
only we would attribute it to pure spirit, whether
created in the image of God, as Adam was, and
as man will be when divested of his form, or
manufactured out of pre-existent matter, as Dr.
Whedon supposes the spiritual body will be. It
is entirely consistent with spirit demonstrations
as recorded in the Bible, and no less authentic
instances in more modern times:
" By volition it'transforms itself into any
shape, and invests itself with a countless variety
of properties and phenomenal presentations. It
can become as the dark rolling cloud, the flashing lightning, the solid rock. And yet it will
have a normal figure and face, which will at once
be the true expression of its essential nature, and
will reveal to the intuition of fellow-celestials
the particular personality, and perhaps the entire
past history of the individual. When asked, Will
the glorified bodies have teeth? we reply, If
they please; and eat with them too, as the angels
did who visited Abraham. If asked, Will they
have hair? we reply, Yes, if they please, and
shining raiment too, as the two angels did
before the apostles at the ascension. Nothing
is more clear, we think, than that varying phe.




212   ETHE FUTURE MAN, PURE SPIRIT.
nomenal form   and  properties are more  or less
at the  command both of the pure spirit and the
union of spirit with spiritual body." *
Of these  sentiments, so generally both philosophically and Scripturally correct, we add only
that they seem to be the strugglings of an independent thinker to  rise  above  the logical conclusions of his false premises and the errors and
prejudices of early education.   Both reason and
revelation teach that the future man will be
pure  spirit, "as  the  angels of God  in  heaven."
o says Dr. Whedon; yet, as though that were
too much to attribute to the just made perfect,
to man all immortal, he qualifies his otherwise
happy conception by saying "the spirit becomes,
so to speak, more substantiated."
It may be difficult to comprehend how man,
whom we know now only in an earthly.body,
can exist pure spirit, "as the angels of God in
heaven;" yet that is what Christ says of him,
and we prefer such authority to any other.
Give us, then, this sublime conception of the
perpetual continuance of life, terminating in a
life which shall be "as the angels of God in
heaven," without any hint that there must be
some  modification  of so  glorious an  existence
* These attributes of spirit give great plausibility to the theory
of the "appearances" of the Saviour after his resurrection, given in
the chapter on the resurrection of Christ, and most satisfactorily
account for the flesh and bones which he annotunced that he had.
The Bible is full of facts which authorize the views here so ably set
forth, and so, also, do well authenticated instances of spirit manifestations of a later day, whether the immediate agent were called a
witch or a medium. It is no longer considered a mark of profound
wisdom to dismiss cases of clairvoyance or spiritual manifestations
with a sneer, as was once the method; and, although there is a world
of fraud and imposture in what is called modem spiritualism, the
man writes himself a dunce who assumes to treat it all as beneath
his notice, or pronounce it all a delusion and imposition.




FUTURE RECOGNITION.          213
by a union, at some future time, with something
of an earthly, material nature, which will-thereafter make us more like earth. Our departed
friends are certainly pure spirits now, and they
are certainly in heaven, even by the concessions
of those who believe in literal material resurrection.' (See extract from Bishop Clark, elsewhere.)
They are with Christ, and they are like Christ.
They are now, as Christ is. Well might David
say: " I shall be Satisfied when I awake with
thy likeness." Who can ask anything more?
And why should good men labor to teach that
the heavenly life shall ever be anything less?
We close this chapter with a few suggestions which some  may consider speculative.
They may be true or false, without affecting
the general doctrine of the book.
Shall we recognize friends in the spirit life?
Certainly. Why not?  Being "the children of
the resurrection," and "as the angels of God in
heaven," the bonds which shall unite us may not
be so selfish and exclusive as are the ties of
kindred and the bonds of friendships here, but
there will be, no doubt, a renewal and a recognition of the loves and friendships of this life
in the life beyond.  There are too many instances of spirit communings, not to speak of
spirit manifestations, here, to doubt the interest
of the departed in those left behind, and, of
course, in those of like relationship in the land
of spirits. That vague notion which too many
entertain of spirits, that they are clouds or atmosphere or undefined shapes, has no countepance in the Bfble or in common sense or in
experience.  The spirit form, the spirit body,
will be well defined, and will certainly be recognizable in the heavenly home, as it often is by




214        CHANGES OF CONDITION.
clairvoyance here, and by the dying, while they
may yet communicate with those around.
Will children remain children in the spirit-life?
We cannot tell, but we hope they will. There
is a world of beauty in the language of Christ:
"Of such is the kingdom of heaven." There is
an instinctive love for childhood which never
dies in the pure and the good, and which is not
dependent upon any relationship to the child
itself. The cynic who is not moved by the loveliness of childhood is a monomaniac, and by'that
much, at least, unfitted for good society, whether that deplorable state has been reached by
vice, or crime, or selfishness. If the presence of
children is so desirable in the social circle, even
in the steamboat, or rail-car, or stage-coach, who
does not hope that children will remain children
in the land of spirits? Let them increase in
knowledge eternally, but let their "spiritual
body," their "mansion," their "house not made
with hands," forever remain infantile, as we
knew them in the earth-life.
Will idiots and  imbeciles remain feebleminded in heaven? We suppose not. Science
has often demonstrated that, in many cages,
idiocy is the result of physical malformation.
Why may not all cases of mental weakness be,
though it be congenital and possibly hereditary?
The intellectual giants of earth may not tower
above others in the land of spirits. Certainly
an intellect of any type which has been devoted
here to selfish and wicked purposes will not
share in the bliss which we are taught by reason and revelation to expect for those who seek
to do the will of God on earth.
Men often speak derisively of those whom
they choose to regard as not very intellectual,




IN TELIECT IS NOT SPIRITUALITY.   215
and say "they know just enough to be religious." Perhaps among the greatest surprises
which await us in the land of immortals will
be one not greatly unlike that experienced by the
rich man of whom Christ speaks. He had been
a sharp trader and a success in life, as men
measure success. He was probably benevolent
and kind, else Lazarus would not have called
upon him habitually for alms.' Yet in all his life
he had done nothing which could be available
in securing happiness in the life beyond, while
Lazarus, contemned as a beggar by the busy,
happy, healthy crowd, had been cultivating that
heavenly-mindedness which eminently fitted him
for the society of the good in that spirit-land.
Thus many who have contemned the religious
obscurity of others as contrasted with their own
mental or social position, may be surprised to
find that, after all, these were wiser in life than
those who had despised them. Hence it is'nct
improbable that those whom we pity, and denominate imbeciles, may at once take higher
rank in the land of immortals than some who
have occupied the highest social and intellectual
positions. It was for misusing his one talent,
not because he had but one, that the unfaithful
servant was condemned-it was for improving
what they had, not because they had two, or
five, or ten talents, that the faithful stewards
were rewarded.




CHAPTER XVII.
THE CONDITION OF THE WICKED,
TN the preceding chapters we have spoken of
the mode of human immortality in general,
referring for illustration chiefly to the condition
of the righteous.  It must not be inferred
from this that we would teach that either the
Bible or reason warrants the assumption, that
in the life to come there will be no difference
between those who served God on earth and
those who served him not. On the contrary,
both reason and revelation teach that there will
be a vast and changeless difference.
While, therefore, the sacred writers seem to
have struggled to find modes of speech and
illustrations from the most joyous and delightful
things of life to impress us with the desirableness of the life beyond, for those who, by patient
continuance in well doing, seek for glory, it has
equally had recourse to the most terrible things
by which to convey an idea of the misery of
those who reject the Saviour, and remain disobedient to the commands of God.
Of the wicked it is said, They shall go away
into everlasting punishment.  Their anguish is
described as the burning of a fire that is not
quenched, as the gnawings of a worm  that
never dies, as abiding in outer darkness, where
there are weeping and wailing and the gnashing
of teeth, and, more fearful than all, as being




EARL Y THEORIES OF HELL.       217
punished with everlasting destruction from the
presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his
power. It can, therefore, be no matter of trifling import to die under condemnation.
In a ruder and more sensuous age, and even
yet among those who are incapable of appreciating the greater pains of mental agony, these
terrible figures of speech were received as veritable realities, and in imagination the infernal
regions of Pluto were accepted as the gospel
abodes of the lost, with a personal devil, and legions of fiends and furies, and literal fire and endtess smoke. Thitherward the souls of the wicked
were sent at death, and, after the resurrection
and judgment, soul and body were to be locked
forever in a vast prison, burning eternally with
fire and brimstone.
The Bible gives no authority for such a disposition of the wicked. Its fearful descriptions
of the anguish of those who have been disobedient, when properly interpreted by the Bible
itself, are even more dreadful than any physical
sufferings, but they do not authorize the hell of
the middle ages, or of the less cultivated and
more brutal of this age.
Neither are the wicked to be annihilated.
The immortal man is still in the image of God,
though fallen; and, though under condemnation
for sin, and unfitted for the society of the good,
he lives, simple spirit, after having laid aside his
house of clay at the. close of his earthly probation.
There is nothing inconsistent with analogy
or the Bible in supposing that, so far as locality
is concerned, the good and the bad live together
hereafter as here.  There are good angels and
bad angels spoken of in the Bible, yet they are
K




218       THE LITERAL GREAT GULF.
not separated by distance, wide and impassable
as the moral gulf may be between them.
The parables which speak of separating the'
tares from the wheat and the sheep from the
goats can not be' made to do service in proving
distinct and distant places of abode for the good
and the bad, unless we put the parables "on
all fours," and prove also' a literal throne, with
a literal king upon it, always facing towards the
same point of heaven's compass, with the right
hand always turned towards' the righteous and
the left hand always towards the wicked. To
our mind such expressions as "come, ye blessed,"'
"depart, ye cursed," have no reference to locality. Those who so interpret them may do so
without doing any violence to the lesson to be
enforced by Christ, while we see in them even
a more terrible retribution than such a material
separation implies.  Such a literalizing of the
language of Christ will require a belief that the
righteous are to sit for ever, for they are to "sit
down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the
kingdom."
In the account which Christ gives of the rich
man and Lazarus, the two were within seeing
and hearing distance. The great gulf between
them was the unalterableness of their moral
characters; that of Lazarus being a passport to
fellowship with the good, but that of the rich
man keeping him a great way off. One was
comforted in realizing the fruition of his faith
in the midst of sufferings, while the other was
tormented in being not only deprived of his
earthly joys, but in having no fellowship with
the pure and holy of the land of spirits.
Even if the theory of some be true, that from
the beginning of the life of immortality all shall




MORAL UNL2IKENESS.          219
tend upward in moral and intellectual character,
the good and the bad alike, there will yet be
*an impassable gulf between them. The want of
moral fitness for the society of Abraham was a
gulf which could never be crossed by the departed rich.man. In this life the wicked usually
wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, until their last moments; while the path
of the just grows brighter and brighter.  If
there is anything in the article of death or in
the after-life which may check the momentum
of earthly habits in either direction, it has never
been revealed by observation or by revelation.
But assuming that it may be, and that from the
hour the man leaves the body in which he has
never sought to please God or love him, he
begins to lead a better life, yet he must see
those who were wiser and better during their
probation forever nearer to God than he himself
can be. This gulf is impassable.
We can hardly conceive of a more marked
difference of character than that of Samuel and
that of Saul; yet, when Samuel foretold the
death of Saul and his sons, it was by announcing
that to-morrow they would be with him. If
heaven were a separate place, far removed from
the locality of hell, this would be impossible.
Samuel and Saul were together in the land of
immortals, yet they were as unlike in moral
character and in personal happiness as they had
been on earth. The gulf which separated them
was no wider now than then, and they were no
more companions in the spirit-land than they
had been on earth. The wretchedness of Saul
was not alleviated by the death of his body, for
his anguish was soul-anguish.
Why may not the good and the bad live




220        THE HELL OF REMORSE.
together in the spirit-land as they do here, and
as good and bad angels do there? The wicked
shall there have no power to trouble, and,
doubtless, the distinction will be more marked,
more perceptible, than here. No robe of mock
righteousness will shield the hypocrite, and no
garment of outward morality will conceal the
inward hatred of the heart, with its fountains
of corruption ever flowing. This of itself will
be an undying torment, a fire which nothing
can quench.
What burning could be so terrible as a conscious existence among the pure and the holy,
yet morally so far from them that approach
and association were impossible?  Everlasting
destruction from the presence or favor of the
Lord, and from the glory of his power, is the
most terrible picture of the reward of the wicked.
The recollection of opportunities slighted, and
of misspent time, will be a perpetual remorse,
more painful to the immortal man than the
gnawings of any worm upon the body; and
what darkness could be so unendurable as to be
shut out from the favor and glory of the Lord?
Those who insist on a literal place of burnings
little appreciate the sinfulness of sin, and underrate the extent of the punishment of those who,
knowing their duty during their probationary
period, did it not.
The flames which tormented the rich man in
hell were not from without, but' from within.
He was not in a literal lake of fire and brimstone, but fire more consuming by far was within
him. Like the rich fool, who had fed his soul
on much goods, by ministering only to the lusts
of the flesh and the desires of the eye, whose
god was his belly, and who minded only earthly




ETERNAL PUNISHMENT.          221
things, he now found that the real man, dispossessed of these sources of happiness, had
nothing on which the spirit could subsist. The
distinctions which wealth had given were all
gone, and in that land where moral character
alone was the measure of worth, he saw the
man whom he had contemned as a beggar now
in the society of Abraham and the good of all
previous ages, while his only associates were
such as had been vile, and low, and sensual on
eaith like himself though clothed in purple and
fine linen, still vile, and low, and sensua in the
land of immortality.' Could any flames from
without so torment? Could any worm within
a material body so gnaw as that consciousness
of a misspent life would forever disturb a soul,
lost? How significant the language of Christ:
" What will it profit a man if he gain the whole
world and lose his own soul? or what would a
man give in exchange for his soul?"
Living in sight of the throne, yet not daring
to approach it; feeling the power of the Lor,
but partaking of none of the glory of that
power; seeing Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,
and thousands of personal acquaintances, whose
humble lives of devotion to God were the butt
of ridicule on earth, now clothed in the righteousness of faith, and living with the Lord, and
being like him, while they, unclothed of their
earthly treasure, have their moral rottenness
all exposed-what torment! What an endless
burning!




CHAPTER XVIII.
A FEW WORDS ABOUT INSPIRATION, HELL, HEAVEN, GENERAL
RESURRECTION AND THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.
L ET it not be said that in this book we deny
the inspiration of the Scriptures.  Nothing
could be further from the truth. If the reader
infers from the views we have taken that this is
so, let him state that such is his inference, not that.
it is our declaration. If he constructs a syllogism and reaches this conclusion, let him state
it as a conclusion, not as a truth. His premises
may be very faulty, and his conclusions may likewise be faulty; but above all let him be charitable, for the papist proves the same thing of him
by the same process; feet-washing Baptists prove
the same thing in the same way, and so on
through the whole line of theological differences
of opinion. It is the cheapest argument in the
world, and, therefore, the most readily resorted
to by the feeble- minded.  No others use it,
except where the thing is openly avowed. In
our views of inspiration we are in good company.
That standard theological work of this generation, McClintock and Strong's Encyclopedia, says:
"Plenary inspiration is a phrase nowhere warranted  by  the  Scriptures as predicated of
themselves."
Let no one say that we deny that there is a
hell.  We do nothing of the kind.  We believe
and teach, as the Bible does, that there is a hell,




BELIEF ZN HELL.            22
whose burnings are eternal, but we do not believe
that it is located in Gehenna, in the valley of the
Sons of Hinnom; neither do we believe or teach
that there is, or ever was, or ever will be, any
part of the universe of God which is a lake of
fre and brimstone, from which the smoke of torment ascends forever and ever. If the reader
infers from this that we believe there is no hell,
let him be honest and truthful, for whoso loveth
and maketh a lie-whoso misrepresents his
brother-shall have his portion in the lake of fire
and brimstone, whatever that is; and we are free
to confess that theological disputants are not
always candid in stating the views of others —let
him be truthful and say that he infers from our
views that we teach that there is no hell, and
not say that we teach anything of the kind.
Let no one say that we teach that there is no
such place as Heaven because we do not believe
that some special portion of God's creation is walled in with jasper, garnished with all manner of
precious stones, and built within with pure gold,
like unto glass, as the prison-house of the immortal, God-like man. The heaven of the Bible and
of reason is so much grander than that, that we
teach of a better country. But if any one infers
that heaven is not a place if it is not a large
city of indescribable splendor such as John saw,
let him frankly state the case as his inference, not
as our teaching.  If he constructs a syllogism
from his own fancy, and reaches this conclusion
let him be honest-honesty is the best policy,
even in theology-and let him say that such is
his conclusion from his premises, not the teachings of this book.
Let no one say that we deny the resurrection
of the dead. We do nothing of the kind. If




224     THE GENERAL RESURRECTION.
the New Testament does not teach the resurrection of the dead, it teaches nothing. If any one
infers, frorh the fact that we deny the resurrection
of the material body, that, therefore, we deny
the resurrection of the dead, let him state this as
his inference, not as our teaching. If he cannot
conceive how there can be an immortality without a body made of clay, let him say so; but let
him not say that we teach no resurrection. The
book is pre-eminently a book teaching the resurrection of the dead after the pattern shown to
the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration,
and after the teachings of Christ, though not
after the traditions of men.
Let no one say that we deny the doctrine of
a general judgment, because we believe that the
departed man goes at once to his place with an
unchangeable character, and that there will be
no such an event as a "resurrection morning"
and a "judgment day," such as is often taught
from the pulpits of the land. All of the moral
sanctions of the Bible, particularly of the New
Testament, find their authority in the great revealed truth which announces that "God hath
appointed a day in which he will judge the world
in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained.". Like all other essential Bible truths
this is abundantly corroborated by the judgment and reason of man, and even if we found
much less authority for it in the Bible we
should be slow to shake public confidence in it,
seeing that without such a doctrine the restraints against vice would be so enfeebled as to
return Christendom to a worse than savage lawlessness.
We trust that we may be pardoned for devoting here a few paragraphs to this subject in




THE yUDGMENT DA Y.           225
elucidation of the Bible teachings, as we read
and understand the Bible.
Peter says, (2 Pet., iii., 7): " The heavens and
the earth, which are now, are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment."
This is, we believe, the most direct passage from
which the idea of a "day of judgment" is deducible. We have shown in our chapter on the
second coming of Christ that this referred to
some event which the Christians of that time
were "looking for and hasting unto."  Whatever it was must have been nigh to them, and
so it was, and so it came in less than six years
from the time of the writing.
Perhaps we may find some clue to the utter
destructiveness of this fire which shall dissolve
the heavens, and melt the elements (v. I2), by
referring to the fact that Peter also says: "The
heavens that were of old, and the earth, and the
world that then was, perished" by being overflowed with water, (Greek, apolluo-were destroyed). Peter means nothing more than this, in
reference to the on-coming calamity. How utterly the world perished, or was destroyed by the
flood, we well know. We do not see how any
man can claim Peter for authority for any other
kind of a destruction of the present heaven and
earth than the destruction caused by that flood,
in the light of Peter's own explanation by his
reference to the local flood which is described
by Moses.  Let him who can believe such, so
believe; we cannot. It is a method of interpretation at war with every law of exegesis.
But, says the objector, does not Peter look for
"new  heavens and a new earth "?  Most certainly, "according to His promise."  That we
may know what this is, let us look at the " prom



226     DESTRUCTION OF THE EARTH.
ise." " Behold I create new heavens and a new
earth," (Is. lxv., I7). This is the promise. Then
what follows? Men shall build houses, sinners
shall live to be a hundred years old, the elect
shall live to be as old as a tree, the lion shall eat
straw like the bullock, and the serpent shall feed
on dust,' and much more of that kind. Is this
anything like the heaven which men usually
locate on the new earth which is to come out
of the fire after the dissolution and meltings of
the judgment day? If the things which belong to
that new heaven are figurative, why should the
burning, and melting, and dissolution all be literal? If the elect are to die even when they
reach the age of a tree, there will be death in the
new heavens and the new earth; and even if sinners are to be accused at the age of a hundred
years, then there are to be sinners there. We
most affectionately beg our readers to " re-examine and re-state" their views on this subject. It
will bear further investigation.
But Peter says: "The day of the Lord will
come, etc." We have referred to this in another
chapter, and add in this connection only this:
Isaiah (xiii., I 3) calls the day of the destruction of
Babylon the "day of the Lord," "the day of his
fierce anger," which shall shake the heavens and
the'earth. A similar hyperbole is found in Isaiah
24th, in which " the earth is utterly broken down
and clean dissolved."  (v. xix.) Yet we never
heard this chapter quoted as authority for a day
of judgment or the burning up of the world.
Why not accept the plain, simple, and reasonable teachings of Christ on this subject? Why
should they be distorted to prove so absurd and
unscriptural a proposition as that which is contained in the notion of a "general judgment"




THE NE W EAR TH.          227
after a "general resurrection," in which all who
shall have lived on earth are to be brought before
a literal throne, with literal books to be opened,
and literal angels to act as bailiffs, and a literal
traversing of every act and every thought of lives
which had ended millions of years before, most
of them in utter obscurity? And all this is to be
done in one day-liiterally within one twenty-four
hours; and indeed in only a very small part of
that day, for the dead in Christ have to be raised
first, then those who are alive have to be changed,
and then the judgment, all on the same day. To
extend the time beyond one literal day of twentyfuur hours is to abandon this entire theorv of the
resurrection and the judgment. If it may lap
over into another day it may into two days, into
ten days, into ten years, into thousands, into millions of years, and this would destroy the whole
theory and bring it in harmony with the doctrine of Christ on this subject-the doctrine of
reason and experience.
We cannot speak certainly, but we do not
believe that any man, of any age, in any time,
of any degree of cultivation, was ever satisfied
with his own reasonings and the reasonings of
the books on this subject which ended in the
calling of the happy from heaven and the damned
from hell for a few hours that they might reinhabit their old bodies, and, a second time, hear
their doom and depart to the right or left according to their character. To say that it must be
postponed until the Almighty finds out how much
evil'.a bad man has done, following the stream
of his influences to the end, and how much good
an upright man has done, following the stream
of good influences in the same way to its end,
sounded to us like blasphemy when we heard




228  LITERAL INTERPRETA TION TESTED.
it with emphasis in childhood-it sounds no better
now. We do not say that this is blasphemy in
the mouths of those who use it, but it would
be in our mouth. "Known unto God are all his
works from the beginning of the world."  We
have referred to the teachings of Christ on this
subject.  Any word of Christ, half so directly
teaching a resurrection of the body, would be
seized upon as unanswerable; why is not this:
"Now is the judgment of this world "? (John ii.,
3I.) And again: "The Father judgeth no man,
but hath committed all judgment to the Son,"
(John v. 22), and "Ha/h given him authority to
execute judgment." (v. 27.) Whatever. is meant
by this Judgment is now taking place. So manifestly does this refer to a final judgment that
Dr. Whedon in his notes says: "Be it specially
noted that during this passage the entire future
of death and resurrection is held as conceptually
present."  We would substitute actually for conceptually, and heartily agree with the commentator. On John v., 27, he says: "We have in the
present passage a brief but most explicit description of the simultaneous resurrection and universal judgment of mankind." This, too, we
most cordially endorse, except that by the context the Doctor refers it to' the far-off future resurrection of the body. We assume and we think
we have shown that the resurrection-the anastasis-follows immediately upon death, and the
judgment is simultaneous therewith, as every
Christian but soul-sleepers practically admits, in
conceding that the soul goes at once to a place
of conscious joy or misery, which it could not
do intelligently, except that the judge had exercised judgment in the case, for from the decision
of that hour there is no appeal. The "final judg



CHRIST, 7OHN, AND PETER.      229
ment," as taught in some pulpits, is not for a
re-hearing of the case, but only for an intensifying
of a judgment already passed. We have already
shown that by authority of Peter " The great and
terrible day of the Lord, spoken of by Joel,"
(Acts ii., I7,) referred to the times in which Peter
lived, a part of which was fulfilled~ in the day of
Pentecost, and a part in the terrible visitation
so graphically predicted by Peter in his second
epistie, third chapter.
There are, then, a general resurrection and a
general judgment. The dead live again, and the
good are rewarded and the bad are punished; but
instead of limiting all this to the few hours which
are usually supposed to embrace them, or instead
of beginning them at some far-off future, and
extending them indefinitely or eternally thence
for     or if extended beyond the twenty-four
hours they may be extended eternally-if the
word day is not limited to twenty-four hours of
our time, and means only a period, it may as well
have begun with Adam as to begin millions of
years hence and extend thence forward indefinitely), we begin them where Christ began
them. Abraham lived with God, and had been
judged; Lazarus lived with Abraham, and had
been judged; the rich man was in torment, having been judged. "Naow is the judgment of this
world," says Christ, and we believe his words in
preference to any creed made by man.




CHAP TER XIX.
CONCLUDING REMARKS.
E conclude with the chapter which probably some would have placed in the beginning. We have often been met, during the years
that we have been preaching the doctrine of the
resurrection of the dead and its kindred topics
as herein set forth, by appeals not to disturb the
settled faith of the people; as though it were almost a sin to jostle men out of the.ruts of
thought and opinion along which they and their
fathers had so long driven unmolested. In one
sense it is mischievous. It is such an affliction
for some men to think, that it is almost cruel to
disturb their drowsiness, and this is not applicable to the pew only, for some men who occupy
the pulpit find it so much easier to accept Milton, and Pollock, and Young, as their teachers,
than to inquire in the Bible whether these things
are so, that they preach from year to year without any farther investigation than the "standard
authors" afford. The suggestion partakes of insufferable cowardice.
On the subject discussed in these pages, we
have found that many pastors not only entertain doubts on the subject of a bodily resurrection at the so-called end of the world, but
they entertain decided convictions that the doctrine is not authorized by the Bible and is opposed by well established philosophy; yet, for
prudential reasons, they continue to preach the




PULPIT AND PB W.               231
dogma according to the creed, or they say nothing on the subject at all, because it is so much
easier to jog along, receiving their stipend from
a satisfied fCock than it is to arouse thought on
any -subject. Neither can it be denied that the
ecclesiastical lash has had something to do in
this enforced silence. Until within a short time
every ecclesiastical organization built its iron
bedstead which was to be the exact measure of
fraternity.  Happily, however, that day is past
forever in the Christian Church, and nothing
but a denial of the most fundamental articles of
faith is any longer a bar to Christian fellowship.*
That the pulpit has lost much of its power
over the pew  is undeniable.  To a certain extent this is legitimate and desirable. The peripatetic school master was once an oracle of
wisdom in the neighborhood, for he alone of all
the adults could read, write and cipher; but he
is not so now, and never will be again, because
an educated community is his equal in learning,
and he now commands only the respect due his
honorable calling, while he fills that calling honorably.
The pre-eminence of the pulpit over the pew
in point of learning, to say nothing of a kind of
superstitious reverence for the place, once gave
it a factitious authority which, happily, it can
never have again, while an educated laity rivals
it in Bible research,' and in labors of love and
self-consecration to the cause of truth.
* As this page is in the hands of the printer, the Chicago Presbytery has vindicated the truth of this proposition by sustaining, by
a large majority, the talented Dr. David Swing, though he has confessedly departed from the old formulas of the Presbyterian creed.
The result of that trial is indicative of the larger liberality of modern
Christianity.




232        APOSTOLIC PREA CHING.
The spiritual wants of men, when properly
aroused, will take them to the congregation of
worshipers that they may obtain that spiritual
food which can be had nowhere else as it can
in the sanctuary, in the communion of kindred
spirits; but'this is often at a great sacrifice,
when their intelligent convictions are outraged
by being compelled to listen to a homily on the
resurrection of the material body which does
violence to the teachings of the Bible and to
common sense, delivered by some one who has
not ingenuity enough to eliminate nineteen-twentieths of the matter before undertaking the task,
as is now the custom in educated circles, as we
have seen by quotations from men of learning
and position.
We would not have the pulpit turned into a
platform  for scientific lectures.  Its one theme
should be repentance toward God and faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no refinement
in modern society which demands any modification of the style of Paul and Peter when they
preached Jesus and the resurrection as the hope
of man, but when, instead of this, the soul
which is hungering for spiritual food is treated
to a discourse on the resurrection of the dead,
which is substantially a repetition of Young's
"Last Day," the thinking man retires in disappointment and disgust.  The language may
be somewhat different but the argument is all
to the point of a literal resurrection of the material body however much that may have been
scattered, and at the sound of Gabriel's trump
they say.:
"Now charnels rattle, scattered limbs and all
The various bones, obsequious to the call,
Self-moved, advance: the neck perhaps to meet
The distant head, the distant legs the feet.




A DYING DOGMA.                  233
Dreadful to view! See through the dusky sky
Fragments of bodies in confusion fly,
To distant regions journeying, there to claim
Deserted members and complete the frame."
Is it any wonder that many thinking men
have been repelled by such senseless jargon, and
have been led to  doubt human immortality altogether,  or  to  embrace  only  the  cheerless,
Christless notions which  are taught at spiritual
se4ances, because they are both more Scriptural
and reasonable than such absurdities?
It is our profound conviction that very few
of the thinking men of the age believe in the
doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, as
taught in the dark ages, so graphically epitomized  in  the  extract from   Young  just given.
That there are such feeble, yet such learned efforts to reconcile it to the known laws of God,
as we have seen, is evidence of this.*
But these modifiers of the "creed" are very
much in the dilemma in which Mr. Beecher was
recently placed by a question.  Being asked if
he believed in the doctrine of the decrees, as
Calvin taught it, he answered:   "I believe in
the doctrine 6f the decrees as it is taught in the
Bible, and as John Calvin would teach it if he
were alive now, and knew what we know."
Happy Mr. Beecher! A believer in Calvinism,
as Calvinism would be with the light of this
century. shining upon the good Calvin!
We imagine.that these modifiers of the doctrine as it was delivered to the saints a hundred
*" For a long time we have noticed a gradual departure from the
clear and definite assertion of the fact and the mode of the resurrection of the body as we used to hear it in -sermons or read it in theological treatises. This change has appeared in the reticence or the
vagueness of utterance on the subject by the best class of thinkers."
-Dr. D. Curry in Christian Advocate.




234: BEAUTY OF SPIRITUAL RESURRECTION.
or five hundred years ago, if asked, Do you believe in the resurrection of the body? would
answer: " Yes, as the discoveries of modern science have modified the doctrine; by eliminating
all foreign matter and all useless appendages."
Believing, therefore, that the Christian church
would be more aggressive at home and abroad,
and.that the consolations of a Christian faith
would be greater in sickness and in health,
and its triumphs more marked in death, if that
gloomy view of the life beyond were wholly
abandoned, and the faith of Paul and Stephen
substituted in its stead, we send out this little
book to do what' it may toward the desirable
end. It goes out with no flourish of trumpets,
or pretensions to great learning, or with any ambitious expectations that it will suddenly revolutionize the sentiments of everybody.  That it
will do something in that direction we are sure.
Its doctrines, often preached to large congregations, have been heard by the common people
gladly, and many who have not had the boldness
to declare their convictions in the pulpit have,
at least, ceased to preach as they. once did.
We may. be pardoned for saying that the immediate occasion for embodying our views in
this form was the more than ordinary Christian
strength which such sentiments gave to the dying
daughter, whose happy death is alluded to in
Chapter thirteen, with a'hope that the perusal of
these pages may remove the dread of death and
especially of the grave from many a timid, trusting one such' as she was, as this faith did from her.
The sentiment of her dying experience was
not anr accident nor a recent revelation. It was
the fixed and intelligent faith of her life, which
had been' one of peculiar affliction. Among the




DEA TH ANNIHILA TED.                      235
relics which we prize is her Bible, with the passages marked which gave her this belief; and a
blank-book, with many fugitive pieces of poetry
to the same purport. We copy the following
anonymous  scrap, not  so  much  for its  poetic
merit, as for the tribute it bears to her taste
and sentiment, and also, as conveying a doctrine worthy the Christian religion:
"There is no death! The stars go down
To rise upon some fairer shore,
And, bright in Heaven's jeweled crown,
They shine forever more.
"There is no death! The dust we tread
Shall change beneath the summer showers
To golden grain, or mellow fruit,
Or rainbow-tinted bowers.
"The granite rocks disorganize
To feed the hungry moss they bear,
The forest leaves drink daily life
From out the viewless air.
"There is no death! The leaves may fall
The flowers may fade and pass away,
They only wait through wintry gloom
The coming of the May.
"There is no death! The angel form
Walks o'er. the earth with silent tread;
He bears our best loved friends away,
And then we call them "dead."
" He leaves our hearts all desolate,
He plucks our sweetest flowers,
Transferred to realms of bliss, they now
Adorn immortal bowers.
"The bird-like voice, whose joyous tones
Made glad this scene of sin and strife,
Sings now in everlasting song
Amid the tree of life.
"Born into that undying life,
They leave us but to come again,
With joy we- welcome them-the same,
Except in sin and pain."




236      FREEDOM FROM THE BOD Y.
We close with an extract from a late sermon
by Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. We are aware
that he is not authority on any theological dogma among dogmatic theologians. Nothing is
easier, or more common, than for profound (?)
preachers to curl the lip and say, with wonderful significance: "Humph! That is just like
Beecher "  But notwithstanding all that, the
thinking minds of the country give very respectful attention to his opinions  indeeY, as the
Chicago Evening 5ournal said not long since,
"by his genius, and without any direct effort,
he has more influence upon the ministerial profession than all the theological seminaries combined."' The following is the passage, taken
from  a sermon of I873, entitled "The Ages to
Come ":
"Some believe that* this mortal body rises
again. Thank God, not I! I have had enough
of it.' And when once the earth takes it, the
earth may keep it. The tree is welcome to
what it can get of me. Says the apostle:
"'There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.''Flesh
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.'
~" Good by, old flesh and blood! I am bound
for God's kingdom without you.
"What it will be to be without them, I cannot tell; but I know it will be magnificent-never
tiring any more, unwearied and unweariable,
with nothing to hinder, and everything to help.
However it may be in the present,' in the ages
to come,' over the mountains, across the valleys,
behind the clouds, beyond all calculable periods,
there'will be a state in which we shall have
dropped this natural body, and shall be endued
with our spiritual body, whatever that is, and




GLORIES OF THE FUTURE          237
shall be free from the circumscription and weariness of this mortal condition. We shall be' Sons
of God.' Who can tell how he will seem, or
how he will be, then? And who can conceive of
that state in which every eye shall shine on him
like a star; in which every heart shall impress
itself on his heart, and make it better, and give
it an impulse in the right direction, so that
every being shall imprint -on him some glorious
aspect; so that every single creature of the
whole realm, lifted into the highest state, shall
bring balm and sweetness to every other one;
when all hindrances shall be gone, and sorrowing and sighing shall have passed away, and
singing shall have taken its'place, and God
shall wipe the tears from every eye-who can
imagine that?
" It will transcend any image that you make
of it.. Draw from the heavens; draw from all
that there is on earth; draw  what you can
through the channels of inspiration and of revelation; collect and cluster together the things
which men have agreed to consider most admirable; and from these form pictorial parables
of the City with its golden streets, with its
gates of pearl, with its walls of precious stones,
with its beautiful gardens, with its flowing rivers,
and with its trees whose leaves are for the
healing of the nations: picture as you may the
future state, from oriental or monarchical conditions, or from the household and the commonwealth as they now exist; from any and all of
these form your conception of it ini any way that
you please; but remember that when you have
made it just as bright as your imagination can
sketch it, when your fancy, architecturally, has
wrought as skillfully as it can, and everything




238           THE AGES TO COME.
has been carried to the highest pitch that your
earthly powers will allow, your conception will
yet be imperfect. For the sweet apostle, looking upon you as a fathdr upon his children, says,
"' It doth not yet appear what we shall be.'
"You have gathered from the cradle purity
of idea, and clasp and cling of faith; you have
gathered from rich companionship what is the
thrill and the joy of the higher life; you have
gathered from the patriarch and- the matronsaints not yet gone home to glory-dignity and
patience, and all that makes generosity and magnanimity; you have gathered your best fruits,
and fashioned them into single characters, and
into ranks, and into communities, and into nations; and you have combined all these things
in your conception of the resplendent throne of
the All-Father. But, saith the sweet Apostle
again,
"' It doth not yet appear.'
"Certainly not, brethren. And if you still
add nation after nation, and age after age, to
that conception, it will fall short of what the
future is to reveal of the goodness of God
through the Lord Jesus Christ."