v^. '^

-^ \^fg.«<. V.'i^i..

hlA;dS,C>r-x

The silence of the Scriptures
respecting the immortality
of the soul.
Few York.

v
^:/:
* -s
'^
y^-
i' ' ,
¦"
«4^v^ . 4-5^^,.. V '*-,,,>• ; ..-
^J
"/give thefe Books
for the foiinding of a ColUgt in this Colony'

THE SILENCE OF THE SCRIPTURES

EESPECTING

THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL,
OE OF THE KACE,'0K OF THE LOST,

"God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,
THAT WHOSOEVEK BELIEVETH IN HlJH SHOULD NOT PEEISH, BUT HAVE
everlasting life." — John iii. 16.
Nothing can be unimportant which concerns our interpreta
tion of the infinite love of God. If we think that he loves us
little, we shall surely love him little. If we feel that he loves
us imraensely, we shall love him much. And we need to un
derstand not only the measure and degree of God's love, but
also the kind and quality of it. Whether we regard him as
caring most for our mere comfort and enjoyment, or as seeking
our moral and spiritual welfare ; whether we regard him as
striving to save us specially from an infinite evil, or for an infin
ite good ; whether we regard him as saving us all absolutely,
or as soliciting or requiring our acceptance of his aid, and^ our
cooperation ; — in either case our gratitude and the tenor of our
life will answer to our notion of the divine love.
But though the question, How does God love us ? is so im
portant, it has been answered by those on whom the love has
been lavished, in these infinitely different ways. To those who
afiirm the final salvation of all, we may reply, however, that a
condition of salvation (which seems to be contained in the text)
is no limit to the infinitude of God's love. His universe may
yet teem with holy and blessed life, though many of the sons of
men should prove faithless and unworthy of eternal life. And
precisely because the offered boon is infinite, so far from being
1

2 THE SILENCE OF THE SCEIPTURES
our due, God has a special right to bestow it on those who with
noble aspiration seek for it.
To those, again, who tell us that God saves us from eternal
suffering, we reply that so far from proving infinite love, that
would scarcely prove any love whatever. We do not know that
even Nero, though he could enjoy the conflagration of Rome,
would not have relented if he had thought of his subjects as
burning without consuming, or as wailing and pining without
dying. One who fears not God nor regards man, may be
wearied, rather than regaled, with the importunities of anguish.
But He whose tender mercies are over all his works, surely
need not tell us of rescue from infinite pain, from which annihi
lation would deliver us, lo prove that he loves us.
Nor do the Scriptures allege any infinite guilt in man, the
pardon whereof shall prove God's love infinite. Two passages,
sometimes alleged as asserting infinite or eternal sin (Job xxii.
5, and Rev, xxii, 1 1), are otherwise explained by orthodox writ
ers. And though more than twenty arguments from reason
have been adduced to show such guilt in man, they have failed
to satisfy the minds of many,-'
Let us inquire, then, if the more literal sense of our text does
not stand clear of these difficulties, and yet save the infinitude
of God's love. He so loved that he gave his only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but
have everlasting life. " He that eateth of this bread," says
Christ, " shall hve forever," We propose to infer that he that
eateth not of this bread shall not live forever. May not the
righteous have eternal life in such sense that the wicked will
not at all live eternally ? May not God's love, conspiring not
only with a wisdom that requires u.s, " by patient continuance in
well doing, to seek for glory, and honor, and immortality," but
also with a holiness that forbids the eternity of the sin which it
abhors, — point thus to a final universality of holy blessedness
throughout his dominions ?
1 See a statement and examination of these Theodicies in " Debt and Grace,"
Q. 3 ; and the remarks of Albert Barnes, cited pp. 54, 55.

on the IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 3
In support of the literal sense of the terms " perish " and
" everlasting life," we may remark that when Christ was on
earth there was a prevailing despair of all after life among the
Gentiles, and among the Jews Sadduceism had become quite
respectable. It was, therefore, specially natural that he who
brought life and immortality to light, should use the words de
noting life and death in their plain and ordinary sense. Hence
it is at least not absurd that John Locke should say, respecting
those who perish : —
" They shall not live forever. This is so plain in Scripture,
and is so everywhere inculcated, that the wages of sin is
death, and the reward of the righteous is everlasting life, —
the constant language of the Scripture in the current of the
New Testament as well as Old, is life to the just, to believers, to
the obedient, and death to the wicked and unbelievers, — that one
would wonder how the reader|f could be mistaken where death
is threatened so constantly, and declared everywhere to be the
ultimate punishment and last estate to which the wicked must
all come. To solve this, they have invented a very odd signifi
cation of the word death, which they would have stand for eter
nal life in torment. They who will put so strange and contrary
a signification upon a word in a hundred places, where, if it had
not its true and literal sen.se, one would wonder it should be so
often used, and that in opposition to life, which in these places
is used literally, ought to have good proofs for giving it a sense
in those places of Scripture directly contrary to what it ordina
rily has in other parts of Scripture, and everywere else." After
treating the question at some length, Locke concludes : " Tak
ing it then for evident that the wicked shall die and be ex
tinguished at last," etc. — (Life by Lord King, pp. 319-322,
Bohn's ed.)
" In a hundred places," says this writer, is the doom of the
lost called death. I am not specially fond of the arithmetical
argument. But it has its use when it can show a general tenor
of the language of a book. Sitting down once to count out this
argument in the Scriptures, I reckoned about five hundred
instances in which the terms " life," " everlasting life," to " live
forever," etc, and, on the other hand, " death," " destruction,''

4 THE SILENCE OF THE SCKIl'TURES
to be " consumed," etc, are applied apparently to the final des
tiny of the righteous and the wicked respectively. And now
we ask, are all such passages to be taken in a metaphorical
sense, or in the usual and ordinary sense of these most impor
tant terms ? When the wicked shall " utterly perish," will they
retain immortality ? Do they who fail of eternal life still live
eternally ?
Now it is an admitted rule of interpretation that the literal or
usual sense of words is prima facie, or presumptively, their
true sense ; and it is overruled only by special considerations,
derived from the nature of the subject, or from the context or
the general style of the book. Moreover, we sometimes hear
persons speak of the eternal life of the lost ; it is sometimes
said that the wicked will not finally die or be destroyed ; and
we are frequently told that such and such words are not to be
taken literally, — as if they might be so taken if no caution were
given. Whereas, we are often tempted to remark, when vari
ous passages of Scripture are cited, That is Bible language —
why not Bible doctrine ?
Is there, now, any good and sufficient reason why the five
hundred passages I have alluded to should be taken out of the
ordinary sense of the words, and in a metaphorical sense ?
There is one reason alleged, which I propose to consider. The
SOUL, it is said, is ijimortal. This immortality of the soul is
regarded by some as inherent, by others as dependent on the
upholding power of God. We are not now concerned with the
nature or mode of it ; let us inquire respecting the fact, in the
light of the Scriptures,
A doctrine may be contained in a book in either of three
different ways, I, It may be directly and expressly asserted
and declared. II, It may be mentioned or spoken of as true.
And this mode of statement is sometimes the strongest, as it is
most suitable for truths most obvious and unquestioned. III. A
doctrine may be involved or implied in other forms of expres
sion, while itself is not named by any proper or descriptive
term. Does the Bible contain the doctrine of man's immortal-

ON THE immortality OP THE SOUL, 5
ity — the immortality of the soul, or of the race, or of the lost —
in either of these three modes ?
I,, II, We will inquire after the first and second of these
modes together, by examining the use of terms that would
assert or mention the alleged immortality, if the doctrine is
true. Such words are,
1. Immortal. This occurs in our translation only once,
namely, 1 Tim, i, 17, where it is applied not to man but to
God : " Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible," etc.
But the same Greek word acfdagriog, rendered incorruptible, also
occurs in six other places, namely, Rom, i, 23 : " The glory of
the incorruptible God ; " 1 Cor, ix, 25 : " They, to obtain a cor
ruptible crown; but we an incorruptible;" xv, 52 : ," The dead
shall be raised incorruptible ; " 1 Pet, i. 4 : " An inheritance
incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away ; " ver,
23 : " Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incor
ruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for
ever ; " iii, 4 : Let their adorning be " the hidden man of the
heart, in that which is not corruptible," etc.
In most of these instances, if not in all, the word is used in
a literal sense, which is so far good reason for its being taken in
the same sense when applied to any class of men. And if it is
so taken in 1 Pet, i, 23, there could hardly be a plainer state
ment of immortality by regeneration : " Born again, not of
mortal or perishable seed, but of immortal and imperishable,"
etc. In 1 Pet, iii, 4, the term can hardly be applied to all man
kind, as the distinction of the outward man and the inward
man is commonly made of the regeneratefl. In 1 Cor, xv, 52,
which is applied by most orthodox writers to the righteous, the
doctrine is plainly that of immortality perfected in a glorious
resurrection, in the spiritual body, wliich the wicked surely do
not inherit,
2, Immortality. This word, used to render two Greek words,
difdaQaia and ddavaaia, occurs five times in our version, namely,
Rom, ii. 7 : "To those who by patient continuance in well
doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life ; "
1 Cor. XV. 53, 54 : " This mortal shall put on immortality," etc. ;
1 Tim. vi. 16: "Who (that is, God) only hath immortality;"
2 Tim. i. 10 : " Christ hath aboHshed death, and brought life
and immortality to light through the gospel." How can this
expression imply the immortality of mankind, if Christ has
never said that all men are, or are to be immortal ?
1*

6 THE SILENCE OF THE SCRIPTURES
We should add that the first Greek word, above named, is
also rendered incorritplion in four places, 1 Cor. xv, 42, 50,
53, 54, applied by nearly all orthodox writers to the resurrec
tion of the righteous. The contrasted Greek word is used in
Gal. vi. 8 : " He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap
corruption ; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the spirit
reap life everlasting,"
3, Everlasting Life. This phrase, or the phrase eternal life,
for which the Greek is the same, occurs forty-five times, and is
uniformly applied to the destiny of the righteous. We are
often told that it does not denote mere eternal existence ; to
which we reply that it does not denote mere eternal happiness.
It certainly includes the sense of living forever, and none the
less because an immortal life may be a blessed life. And if
Christ came to reveal an immortality not understood before,
then the literal sense of the phrase would seem to be primary
and ruling, and the sense of blessedness accessory.
4. Life. In one place this word, apparently denoting eternal
life, is claimed by UniversalistS as applying to all mankind,
Rom. V, 18: "Even so by the righteousness of one the free
gift came upon («/?) all men unto justification of life," But in
ch, iii, 22, the same justification is said to be "unto {dg) all,
and upon (tni) all them that believe," Here is an obvious dis
tinction between salvation adequate for all, and salvation at
tained by a class. And simple consistency in our translation
would have allowed the same distinction in ch, v, 18, thus :
" Unto all men," etc,
5, Endless Life. Heb, vii, 16: "After the power of an end
less life ; " said of the priesthood of Christ, Compare John
xiv, 19 : " Because I live, ye shall live also," So far as the
phrase concerns our hope of life, it would indicate the immor
tality of those who are branches of the true Vine,
6, To Uve forever. This phrase occurs twenty-three times.
It is applied to God eight times, Deut. xxxii. 40 ; Dan. iv. 34 ;
xii. 7 ; Rev. iv. 9, 10 ; v. 14 ; x. 6 ; xv. 7 ; as a prayer for the
king, equivalent to our " Long Uve the King ! " seven times, 1
Kings i. ?1 ; Neh. ii. 3 ; Dan, i, 4 ; iii, 9 ; v. 10 ; vi, 6, 21 ; as
a question respecting the prophets, once, Zech, i, 5 : " Do they
live forever ? " to Christ once, Heb. vii. 25 : " He ever liveth
to make intercession for us ; " to the word of God once, in the
remarkable passage above noted, 1 Pet. i. 23 ; as showing
what man lost by sin, twice, Gen. iii. 22 : " And now, lest he
put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and
live forever ; " Ps. xlix. 7-9 : " None can by any means re-

ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 7
deem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him ; (For the
redemption of their soul is precious, but it ceaseth forever ;)
That he should still live forever, and not see corruption ; "
and to denote the destiny of the righteous, thrice, Ps. xxii. 26 :
" They shall praise the Lord that seek him ; your heart shall
live forever ; " John vi. 51 : " If any man eat of this bread, he
shall live forever ; " ver, 58 : " He that eateth of this bread
shall live forever,"
The literal sense is questioned in none of these instances ex
cept where the eternal destiny of man is concerned !
7. Length of days forever and ever, Ps, xxiv. ; one of the
most explicit phrases for immortality that could be used, and
applied to those who ask of God hfe,
8, To abide forever. 1 John ii, 17 : " He that doetli the
will of God abideth forever." Here the literal sense and its
application to a final destiny are unquestionable. Compare the
same phrase in 1 Pet, i, 23.
9. Not to perish. See John iii, 15, 16 ; x, 28 : "I give unto
them eternal life, and they shall never perish ;" 1 Cor. xv, 18 :
" Then (that is, if Christ is not raised) they which are fallen
asleep in Christ are perished;" where orthodox writers have
ventured to say the word means, " to be deprived of being,"
10, Not to die. This phrase occurs seven times, namely,
Isa, Ixvi. 24 : " Their worm shall not die ; " repeated in Mark
ix, 48 (only once, according to Tischendorf, Alford, and Green ;
of the sense, hereafter), Luke xx, 36 : "Neither can they die
any more. John vi, 50 : " This is the bread that cometh down
from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die," John
xi. 26 : " Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never
die." Rom. vi. 9 : " Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth
no more." Tbe remaining instance is the only one in which
the phrase is applied to man as man, and we cannot then be
lieve the witness, Gen. iii. 4 : "Ye shall not surely die."
The passage in Luke has been applied by one orthodox writer
to all mankind, by a lengthy argument designed to meet the
apparent silence of the Scriptures respecting the alleged im
mortality of the race. But the context would evidently carry
the argument to the Universalist conclusion, (See it examined
in " Debt and Grace," p. 161, and " Christ our Life," pp, 7-15,)
Here are ten different forms of expression, all occurring in
the Scriptures, some of which might have been, or rather, m%ist
have been employed in any plain declaration or mention of the

8 THE SILENCE OF THE SCRIPTURES
supposed immortality of mankind. Two of them, Rom, ii, 7
and 1 Cor, xv, 52, are cited for this express purpose by the
compiler of the " Bible Text-Book," recently published by the
Boston American Tract Society. But a glance will show that
when applied to man at all, they promise immortality only by
redemption through Christ.
And I here venture to say that it is impossible to put the
now popular doctrine of immortality into proper words, without
at least a verbal contradiction of the Scriptures. I know that
there may be a double use of words which involves no real con
tradiction. The Bible tells us we should " answer a fool accord
ing to his folly," and that we should answer him " not according
to his folly ; " that we should " bear one another's burdens,"
and that " every one shall bear his own burden ; " that Christ
said the sickness of Lazarus was "not unto death," and after
wards, " Lazarus is dead." All this gives us no trouble, for we
find a like varying use of words in all books. And all this is
within the lids of the Bible. But when Jehovah says, " Dying
thou shall die," and expositors say that the lost " in dying shall
never die ; " when the prophet says, " The soul that sinneth, it
shall die," ' and we are afterwards told, " When you hear that
there is a death of the soul, do not think that the soul dies ; for
it is immortal ; " when the apostle declares, "No murderer hath
eternal life abiding in him," and it is explained that there are
" two kinds of eternal life," one " in shame and everlasting con
tempt ; " ^ then we insist that there is a verbal contradiction be
tween the words of the Holy Spirit in the Bible, and the words
of man outside of the Bible ; it is presumptively a real contra
diction ; and it must be a real contradiction unless the supposed
immortality of man is shown to be implied, though not named,
in one or more scriptural expressions.
III. Is the doctrine contained, then, in the third possible
mode which we have stated ?
1 Ezek. xviii. 4. Note the phrase, " the soul of the father," etc. But if the
word soul may here mean^cr-son, comp. Matt. x. 28; Jas. v. 20; 1 Pet. ii. 11.
2 For the above and numerous other examples of the double sense wMoh we
censure, see "Christ our Life," pp. 34-38.

ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 9
Men are so ready to infer what they believe, from the re
motest intimations, that we should not wonder if numerous pas
sages had been claimed as implying their immortality. And I
cannot here examine all that have been thus claimed. But a
word or two upon a few of those most frequently alleged will
suffice to show how hastily men have deduced their immortality,
sometimes from expressions which prove the very opposite.
1. Man's creation in the divine image certainly does not im
ply that we are like God in all respects. And if the expres
sion iu Gen. i. 27 is not said to denote our immortality, it may
be otherwise explained. And it has been more frequently inter
preted in other ways, by learned Jewish and Christian writers
of all agee-.
2. " Man became a living soul." But the phrase " living
soul" (Heb. nephesh chajah) is applied in Gen. i. 30 to " every
beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every
thing that creepeth upon the earth." In Rev. xvi. 3, " Every
living soul died in the sea," the equivalent Greek phrase is
used ; which is put in significant contrast with the phrase " quick
ening spirit" in 1 Cor. xv. 45. Its grammatical sense is simply,
" a living creature."
3. " Their worm shall not die, neither shall tlieir fire be
quenched." Isa. Ixvi. 24 ; comp. Mark ix. 48. The reader will
see at once that any argument which infers the immortality of
the soul from the phrase in Mark, must also infer the immor
tality of " carcases " from the verse in Isaiah. But Dr. Richard
Watson is amply supported when he says : " As the worm
itself dies not, but destroys that it feeds upon, and as a fire un-
quenched consumes that upon which it kindles, so when tem
poral judgments are expressed by this phrase, the utter destruc
tion of persons, cities, and nations, appears to be intended."
And we need only ask, How can a symbol and picture of " utter
destruction " become the proof and demonstration of any im
mortality ?
4. " Unquenchable fire." Which " burns up " chaff and felled
trees, to which the wicked are compared. Matt. iii. 12 ; Luke
iii. 17. So a Jewish writer calls an incurable fever an un
quenchable fire ; but who infers the immortahty of the patient ?
And Eusebius speaks of Christian martyrs as carried to the
stake and burned with an unquetichable fire. The entire usus
hqumdi makes the phrase decisive proof that out of Christ we
strictly perish.

10 THE SILENCE OF THE SCRIPTURES
6, " Everlasting " or " eternal fire." Matt, xviii, 8 ; xxv, 41 ;
Jude, ver, 7. Taken by numerous orthodox writers to denote
the eternity of effect.^ The fire consumes utterly and forever.
So the writer of the Epistle to Diognetus (a. d. 135) speaks of
the lost as " punished unto the end " by this fire, and good crit
ics understand him as meaning extermination.^ And in the
" Clementines " we have this passage : " They who do not repent
shall receive their end by the punishment of fire ; . , , punished
with eternal fire, they shall after a time be extinguished,"
(Hom. iii. 6.)
6. " Everlasting punishment," Put in contrast with " life
eternal," Matt, xxv, 46, The current doctrine here deduces
immortality from the opposite to eternal life. But if this phrase
includes the literal sense, how unnatural to say. The righteous
will live forever, and the wicked will suffer forever. Numerous
orthodox writers allow that eternal death in the literal sense
would be eternal punishment. And in most of the twenty-eight
instances where the Greek word {xolaaig or y.oXoQa) occurs in
the Septuagint, the actual punishment is death. And classic
Greek writers use the phrase, "to punish with death,"
7, " And in hell (Hades) he lifted up his eyes, being in tor
ments," etc., Luke xvi, 23, But the five brethren of the rich
man are still alive. The scene is laid before the resurrection
and final judgment, when " Death and Hell (Hades) are cast
into the lake of fire, which is the second death," (Rev, xx, 14,)
Orthodox writers allow that Hades is thus utterly destroyed.
And they who are appointed to the same lake of fire (or " eter
nal fire ") may strictly perish in the second death.
8. Satan, the Beast, and the False Prophet are described as
"tormented, day and night, forever and ever," Rev. xx. 10.
But the Beast and False Prophet are regarded, by numerous
orthodox writers on ch. xix. 20, as utterly destroyed, like Death
and Hades. And in the original of Ps, Ixxxiii, 17 there are
quite as strong words, which are never understood to denote
endless woe : " Let them be confounded and troubled forever
and ever ; yea, let them be put to shame and perish," '

I To the instances cited in " Christ our Life " -we may here add that Van der
Palm, a learned and orthodox translator of the Bible, says on Jude 7 : "As this,
according to the Greek text, is said of the cities, ive must here take the words
eternal fire in the sense of a tire which cannot be extinguished until it has con
sumed every thing and reduced it to ashes."
' Otto, De Justini Scriptis; Semisch, Life, etc., of Justin.
' See the above and other passages examined more at large in " Debt and
Grace," pp. 185-216, and in " Christ our Life," pp. 92-153.

¦ON THE MIMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, 11
I have thus endeavored to show that the doctrine of a gen
eral immortality is neither declared, nor named, nor implied in
the Scriptures, In the last feature the argument is of course
incomplete in details ; but the whole may suffice as a reason for
reconsidering the popular opinion. To very many persons it is
now becoming clear that, on Scriptural grounds, we must be
lieve iu the most absolute sense, that in Christ we live', out of
Christ we die. " The doctrine of the immortality of the soul,"
says Olshausen, "and the name are alike unknown to the entire
Bible," And even the Chevalier Bunsen has remarked : " The
idea of the philosophers of the last century as to a general im
mortality of the soul is a delusion ; this doctrine is as untenable
in philosophy as it is in theology,"
If our argument is valid so far, and the alleged doctrine is
contained in the Bible in neither of the three only possible
modes, you may say that nothing more need be said, for demon
stration can no further go. But that which seems to me the
main argument is yet to come.
For, it has been said that the alleged immortality is rather
assumed or taken for granted than expressly revealed in the
Scriptures, As much as to say, though the doctrine is not ap
parent in the language of the Bible, it is, nevertheless, under it,
or it underlies it as a basis or foundation truth.
Now it would seem strange if an important doctrine were so
contained in a book as not to appear in it. If a house is set so
far down in the ground that we cannot see the foundation, we
begin to doubt if it has any. We would not risk our safety or
our comfort to live there until we have seen the foundation.
And even they who tell us that immortality is assumed, are
constrained to argue that the language of the Bible is colored
by their alleged doctrine, in those passages which, they say,
imply it.
But how shall we refute the assertion ? When an important
doctrine is said to be a primary truth, a self-evident axiom, he
who denies it must appear almost a fool in the eyes of him who
asserts it. The parties seem so far apart that reasoning between

12 THE SILENCE OF THE SCRIPTURES
them is impossible, and the dispute may pass into angry and
vehement contradiction.
We are saved from this danger by a peculiar mode in which
it has been asserted that man's immortality is a primary and
assumed truth of the Bible. The doctrine is sometimes coupled
with that of God's existence, and the two are alike said to be
taken for granted in the volume of revelation.^
This statement, happil)% gives us a platform of argument, the
" standing place," from which the assertion can be shaken, if it
is not a fixed and settled truth. We have now two doctrines,
said to be alike assumed or taken for granted, in the same book
of final authority in religion. And we may now inquire how
the two doctrines would most naturally appear, and how they
actually do appear, in the revelation which God has given.
If equally true, they would appear, I think, in substantially
the same manner in the Scriptures. For, they are of the same
final importance to mankind. Not, indeed, of the same impor
tance in the universe. For, though all human souls should per
ish, nay, though the heavens should fall and all created worlds
1 Abp. TiUotson, Sermon 100: ''Tlie immortality of the soul is rather sup
posed, or taken for granted, than expressly revealed in the Bible." A. Vinet,
A Cliaracteristic of the Go.spel : " The doctrines of the existence of God and
the immortality of the soul are everywhere taken for granted in his [Christ's]
words, but are never proved." Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason,
Preface: '* The assumption — as the practical interests of morality require —
of God, Freedom, and Immortalitv." (The last we affirm, as the end of vir
tue.) Dr. Proudfit, Bibliotheca Sacra, 1858, p. 804: " That best and highest
of revelations . . . announces, not an immortal soM^that is everywhere taken
for granted in the New Testament), but an immortal man." The Presbyterian
Quarterly, 1860, p. 600: "The Bible generally assumes the immortality of the
soul, as it does the existence of God." The Oberlin Evangelist, June 19,
1861: "He [Satan] assumed most fully that the death threatened [in Gen. ii.
17] would be a form of existence, not non-existence. The devil could not
hope to be believed if he had given that word the sense of annihilation." The
Boston Review, 1861, pp. 446, 452: "The intuitional persuasion, . . . 'We
know that the soul is immortal, as we know there is a God.' " ''The whole
projection of a rational being assumes the fact of its inherent immortalitv."
The Am. Theol. Review, 1862, p. 180: " Christ's teachings presuppose mono
theism and immortality." (Did Christ assume as already known that which
he came to bring to light?)
Isaac Watts, so far from assuming immortality, says: " Nor do I think we
ought usually, when we speak concerning creatures, to affirm positively that
their existence shall be equal to that ofthe blessed God, especially with regard
to the duration of their punishment." (World to Come, Disc. xiii. § 2.) And
we have heard a thoughtful divine say the wonder is, not that any should be
come extinct, but that any should live eternally.

ON THE IMMORTALITY OP THE SOUL, 13
crumble back to dust, yet, if God still lives, the hope of the
universe remains. In a new dawn of creation the morning
stars might yet sing together and all the sons of God again
shout for joy. To God himself, then, and for the interests that
centre in Him, his being is of infinitely more account than
man's immortality. But to man, to you and to me, God and
immortality are of precisely the same account. That is, we
are equally concerned and our welfare is equally involved,
whether a thousand years hence we are dead to God, or God is
dead to us.
And the revelation which we have, and which is given for
our special instruction and benefit, relates as really to the one
question as to the other. If there were two Gods, as the Per
sians held, and if the Bible were made up from their diplomacy,
state papers touching the affairs of the astronomical universe,
then there might have been a bare allusion to our human race,
and not a word saying whether we are mortal or immortal. But
the Bible is no such- book. It lets alone almost all geology and
astronomy, all questions about the Milky Way and other nebulse,
just because it would fain tell man what he has been, what he
is, and what he may yet be. In such a book we may safely say
that our immortality, if it be real and true, would be treated in
much the same way with the existence of God. If these are
two cardinal doctrines, and if one of them is explicitly stated
and declared ; or is frequently named and mentioned as if
already understood ; or is never named, but silently assumed, as
if too obvious or too sacred for utterance ; — then we might ex
pect the same of the other.
And now what are the facts ? The existence of God is
indeed never in the Scriptures directly asserted, or made the
burden of a proposition. There is a single approach to this
form of statement (in Heb. xi. 6) ; but there the nature of faith
is the leading theme, and the clause, " that God is,'' is subordi
nate. In numerous other instances, especially in the Old Tes
tament, it is said that there is one God rather than many gods ;
but these statements are made against polytheism rather than
2

14 THE SILENCE OF THE SCRIPTURES
atheism. The doctrine of some divine existence is assumed,
as too clear for argument or even for declaration, as an axiom
or primary truth of the religious consciousness, to prove which
would be preposterous. It is only the fool that says in his
heart, " There is no God." But, so far from being silently as
sumed, the divine existence is mentioned, and alluded to, and
involved in various forms of speech,^ continually. It stands
out, in bold relief, on almost every page of the Bible, It meets
the reader at every turn. There are just two short books (that
of Esther and the Song of Solomon) in which the name of
God does not appear ; and their inspiration has been questioned
on that account. They are retained in the sacred canon, not
withstanding the objection, for special reasons. In every other
book the existence of God is the apple of gold in the picture of
silver. It is the central diamond, the Kohinoor or "Mountain
of Light " that illumines the volume. It is the all-pervading
truth that renders the Bible a Discourse of God — the Word
of God, It is the Shekinah that imparts sacredness to the
Word, so that even sceptics have approached it with awe, as
holy ground. And, lest this one great truth should weary the
devout reader with monotony, it is mentioned in endlessly vary
ing forms, in manifold names of the Divine Being and of His
glorious attributes. And, to arrest the attention and invite the
study of reluctant men, the Bible yields a thousand expressions
of the power and wisdom and goodness of God, If we strike
from the record all those passages that tell of His being and
His works, we reduce the dimensions of the volume almost by
half, we make it a book without sense or meaning, we exchange
the light of the revelation for midnight darkness.
But if we expunged from the same book all those passages
in which the immortality of the soul, or of the race, or of the

1 1 think it will be found that all primary truths of morals or religion are
similarly incorporated in the language of the Scriptures. The responsible free
dom of man, e. g., though not put mto a thesis, such as, " the freedom of the
will," is really named in all such expressions as " willing," " choosing," and
" refusing." Though not stated abstractly or even directly, it is plainly men
tioned in the concrete.

ON THE IMMORTALITY OP THE SOUL. 15
lost, is mentioned or expressly assumed, we leave the volume
untouched — it remains as it was. It might have been written
just as we have it, and the revelation would have been full as
clear and complete as it is, if the sacred writers had combined
and conspired with uniform consent to avoid all allusion to that
form of doctrine which is sometimes called one of the two car
dinal doctrines of all religion.
Whence this contrast in the Scriptural treatment of these
ideas ? Does any one say that man's immortality is sufficiently
clear to his unaided reason ? But that important truth ought
to be surpassingly clear to human reason which need not be
named in a revelation. And, if we suppose the more obvious
truth to be named less frequently because more clear and obvi
ous, then should man's immortality be a thousand-fold clearer
than God's existence ; nay, clearer beyond all possible compari
son, as any large number is incomparably greater than a cypher.
I know it will not be claimed that man's immortality is so
clear, past all shadow or dream of doubt. But if we grant, for
argument's sake, that it is too clear to need explicit mention in
the Bible, we only encounter a new difficulty. For, the reve
lation that God was to give to man is necessarily given iu
man's language. Not only in the single words they use, but
also in the current forms and proverbial phrases of human
speech, so far as these were not false, or to be corrected or
modified by the revelation. But if man's immortality were so
clear a postulate of human reason, it must be a most cherished
sentiment, and must give rise to many familiar expressions,
household words of natural theology. In fact, wherever the
doctrine has been held, whether in ancient or modern times, it
has created various forms of expression that reveal the sentiment.
Hence we now hear so often of " the immortality of the soul."
Why, then, are such expressions altogether avoided and ignored
in the Bible ? Why should the Holy Spirit, so ready to catch the
language of the mortals who were to be taught the way of life,
have failed to conform to their style of speech in so important a
matter as their supposed immortal nature ? Why, if God has

16 THE SILENCE OP THE SCRIPTURES
told men that they must enjoy or suffer eternally, has he never
given his invitation or his warning in the name of the immor
tality with which he is supposed to have endowed them ? Such
a gift, surely, would be preeminently worthy of mention to
those who think and say so much of their supposed possession
of the boon. Did God not desire men to be grateful for a gift
in which the divine image is so often alleged to consist ?
Such are the difficulties of supposing that man has an im
mortality too clear and indisputable to need mention in a reve
lation. But we encounter still a new difficulty when we con
sider the actual and anxious doubts of men, for thousands of
years, on this very subject. Because man was a candidate _/<»•
immortality, we find in the ruins of his fallen nature, through
all history, some sentiment of the birthright he had lost. Sub
ject to death, he yet finds, or thinks he finds, some remnant
within him of that which is too good to die. Hence that Ques
tion of Ages, " If a man die, shall he live again ? " But, aside
from revelation, the question has been ever answered doubt
fully. And far more so than that of God's existence ; for,
while atheists have been so rare that some think real atheism is
impossible, many individuals and even whole nations, believ
ing in God, have denied man's personal immortality,^ And,
just before the true Light came, in the person and words of
Christ, there was more doubt, both among Gentiles, and per
haps the Jews themselves, than ever before. Yet, when the
long questioning was answered, and Life and Immortality were
revealed, there was not a word uttered respecting the immortal
nature or destiny about which there had been so much specula
tion. He who had the words of eternal life, never said that
all men were to live forever. And he never spoke of the life
that he gave as a happy form of some immortality which they
already possessed.
One fact makes this silence of the Life-revealer even yet
more significant. Man had come under the power of death by
* On this point sea " Debt and Grace," pp. 265-356.

ON THE IMMORTAHTY OP THE SOUL. 17
giving heed to the flattering suggestion that he should " not
surely die." And we have found liiat statement to be the only
instance in the Scriptures in which man is spoken of as immor-
tah If, now, that lie of Satan contained any truth whatever, if
it was properly one of those half truths which are the most per
nicious falsehoods, then there was special need that the per
verted truth should be redeemed from its lying service, and put
into its true form and relation. If a jewel of priceless value
has received a false setting, all who know its worth will clamor
for its being set anew, so that its real beauty shall appear. If
plundering and murderous wreckers have displaced the lights of
a harbor, to laSeihe sailor to his ruin, humanity cries out not
only for their condign punishment, but for the instant restoring
of the lights to their true position. But when that " liar from
the beginning" threw out his lure for the mariner toward im
mortality, his false light is left as his own proper utterance,
unreBeaced, unredeemed. He who was appointed to crush out
this serpent's head, finds no truth iu him at all worth saving,
but warns us that except by union with himself we have "no
life in us."
Some one may say that the Jews were an unphilosophic peo
ple, too full of national conceit to think of an immortality in
human nature itself, good for all nations and all men. But
Paul surely suffered no such lack of culture, nor such narrow
ness. The Apostle to the Gentiles, who knew how to quote
the Greek poets and was a master in the art of reasoning, must
have known what the philosophers had said of immortality.
Why, then, did he never speak of the immortality of the soul,
or of mankind? If he thought the Gentiles were right as to
the fact of a general immortality, but wrong as to the manner
of it, why did not he who was all things to all men recognize
their doctrine so far as it was true, and carry it out in its pro
portions of symmetry and beauty ? When some mocked at his
preaching of Jesus and the Resurrection, why did not he who
warned every man day and night with tears appeal to what they
had heard of an immortality they could not escape ?
2*

18 THE SILENCE OF THE SCRIPTURES
Finally, if it is said that the wicked are not called immortal
because their endless existeace is unworthy of that name, then
why should we call it immortality? And by what warrant is it
said even that they will exist forever, when the Scriptures use
no such language, but tell us, " He that doeth the will of God
abideth forever ? "
The sum of the argument is this : The alleged immortality,
if true, is as important to man as the existence of God. And
the Scriptures are wont to recognize and incorporate all great
and primary truths of religion. But, while they plainly speak
of God's existence many hundreds of times, they name the
immortality of mau not once. And that, too, when there was
special doubt among the nations, and special need of revelation
on the subject, and the Scriptures explicitly profess to make the
subject plain and clear. An early assertion of exemption from
death, made by the author of death, the Life-giver leaves with
him who made it. The most cultured of the inspired writers is
as silent as all the rest, respecting the immortality now com
monly alleged. And, to crown the whole, the AVord of Life
does copiously employ the terms which would name the doc
trine, such phrases as " to live forever," " everlasting life,"
"length of days forever and ever," "never to die," "incorrup-
tion," " immortality," and " to abide forever," but ever applying
them to the righteous and never to all mankind.
If, then, some of us choose to copy the style of the Scrip
tures on this subject and never speak of man or of the soul as
immortal, if we even say that the assuming or taking for granted
of man's immortality is wholly extra-scriptural, let our friends
respect what may be the just scruples of honest minds.*
1 This argument, the main features of which have been offered to the public
in three different books, is regarded by friends and opponents as requiring
special attention. But it has been noticed by only three among more than a
dozen critics. One replies, for substance, that the " immortality of the soul "
is an abstract or metaphysical stj'le of expression, not falling within the design
of a revelation. (Bibliotheca Sacra, 1858, p. 635.) Another says, in the same
style : " Neither do the Scriptures lay down in scientific form' various other
great principles of metaphysics. (Oberlin Evangelist, Juue 5, 1861.) But the
statement in " Debt and Glrace," p. 162, specially guards the argument against
so narrow an application, and we need only reply: Just as if our Heavenly

ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 19
You will bear with an illustration. The true mountain, up
heaved from the lower strata of the earth's surface, reveals the
granite base of all the mountains. It offers granite every
where, and in all forms ; in strata, cropping out in various hues
and inclinations ; in massive boulders, and in scattered stones
and ddbris. The mountain acquires the cast and air of granite,
and tells you thus of the foundations on which the earth rests.
So the Bible is, as it were, a Mountain of God. In a thou
sand passages it tells you plainly and explicitly of the I Am,
who sustains and upholds all things. The grandeur and sub
limity of the Bible is largely due to this feature of it. Its
massive truths are all about God, and man's relations to God.
And, to relieve and invite the mind, the sentiment of the divine
appears in manifold variety, in all the region of sacred truth.
But if we explore this same Mountain of God over all its
surface and through all its folds and implications for a revela
tion of the immortality of the soul, or any thing equivalent, we
shall find not a single boulder, or stone, or pebble, that shall
stand as a proper monument or memento of that doctrine which
has been assumed for a primary truth of the divine Word.

Father could not or would not call us immortal, if we are so, without a formal
or metaphysical statement ! The third reply is that offered by the Rev. Mr.
Cobb, in our Discussion, pp. 193-195. He objects that existence and duration
are not comparable. " Stature and complexion are not comparable traits of
being. So my opponent, by comparing the Bible treatment ofthe existence of
God with that of the immortality of man, forces into connection two things
which in their nature can bear no comparison." Mr. C. thinks being should
be compared with being, and immortality with immortality, in each subject.
¦ But his objection is answered from the terms in which he states it. It was
the " Bible treatment " of two doctrines alleged as alike assumed for primary
truths, that formed the matter of comparison. And the contrast discovered is
not denied. And, accepting for argument's sake the terms of comparison he
offers, I find God's immortality, or his eternity, asserted or mentioned scores
of times, but man's immortality not once. (P. 426.)
To my statement that the compared doctrines, if alike true, are equally
important to man, Mr. C. replies that " these two truths as subjects of revela
tion to man, especially in the infancy of the race, bear no comparison." (P.
216.) And the difference is important, he thinks, because the knowledije of
God's existence is essential to all religion. The fact is true, but it does not
touch my statement. Our welfare is equally related to God and immortalitj',
whether the latter is revealed sooner or later. And when the immortality comes
to be revealed, it is the righteous, not all men, that have the promise of it.
If we are in a great error, may we not ask instruction by better replies than
these, to our leading argument ?

20 THE SILENCE OF THE SCRIPTURES
Again, I say, if some of us decline the current phrases respect
ing man's immortality, call it not heresy ; for heretical persons,
if I mistake not, are those who will not be bound by the terms
of Scripture.^
But the argument does not end here. Mountains have their
adjacent valleys and plains, with transported rocks from their
own material, indicating their structure. So, after the revela
tion was complete, we might expect to find in the language of
the early Christians much of the style that pervades the Scrip
tures. They were a sincere, plain-minded people, easily im
pressed by the words they loved. In their own writings they
quote largely from the Testaments, Old and New, while they
amply employed their own language, showing how they under
stood the sacred words. But while they went everywhere, hold
ing forth the word of life, they did not for a full hundred years
after the death of Christ speak of man as immortal, nor of the
lost as suffering forever. Let the following passage from one
of their martyred bishops tell their views : " The Father of all
makes a grant of continuance forever and ever to those who
are saved. For, life is not of ourselves, nor of our own nature,
but a gift of God's favor. And therefore he who preserves the
grant of life, and renders thanks to Him who bestows it, shall
receive length of days forever and ever. But he who rejects
it, and proves ungrateful to his Maker for creating him, and
will not know Him who bestows it, deprives himself of the gift
of duration to all eternity.'' And he concludes : " Of the crea
tion and duration of the soul let so much be said." ^
How, then, you will ask, did Christians first begin to speak
of the soul as immortal ? The phrase first occurs in the Epistle
1 "Two things," says Baxter, "have set the Church on tire, and been the
plagues of it above one thousand years : 1, Enlarging our creed, and making
more fundamentals than ever God made. 2, Composing, and so imposing, our
creeds and confessions in our own words and phrases." — (Works, Vol. iii.
p. 76.)
2 Irenseus, A. d. 178. Our early conjecture that even Athanaslus, the
" Father of Orthodoxy," would be found on the whole supporting our view, is
confirmed by a recent German writer, Hermann Schultz, who interprets hiin
as saying that sin carries its unredeemed subject "through corruption, back to
non-existence."

ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 21
to Diognetus, but in such connection as to show that the writer
regarded immortality as man's proper destination, but not his
absolute destiny. (See above, p. 10.) A few years later, how
ever, Justin Martyr appeared as a defender of Christianity.
He had been a philosopher, and continued to bear that title,
" hoping,'' says Milner, " to conciliate the affections of philoso
phers, and allure them to Christianity  To draw gentlemen
and persons of liberal education to pay attention to Christianity
appears to have been his chief employment." " Justin was the
first sincere Christian who was seduced by humnn philosophy to
adulterate the gospel, though in a small degree." (Chh. Hist.,
Cent. IL) And Jerome having complained that Aristides (a. d.
125) "not only retained his philosophic garb and profession,
but also interwove his philosophical opinions in his book,'' adds :
" which was afterwards imitated by Justin Martyr." (De Viris
Ulus., c 20 ; Ep. 83, ad Magnum.)
In his " Apologies " Justin employs strong and extra-scrip
tural language that seems to imply eternal conscious punish
ment. And in his " Exhortation to the Greeks " he states, as
truths held in common by philosophers and Christians, the
divine origin of the world and creation of man, the immortality
of the soul, and judgment after death. Thus the modern doc
trine was fairly named ; and the words passed gradually into a
formula of faith.
Yet in the same treatise, Justin speaks of believers in Christ
as alone " immortalized," the expression apparently denoting an
unsettled opinion. And in his "Dialogue with Trypho," he
explicitly discards the teachings of Pythagoras and Plato on
immortality, declares that "whenever it is necessary that the
soul should no longer be, the vital spirit leaves it, and the soul
is no more, but returns again thither whence it was taken ; "
and he is regarded by numerous critics as having been martyred
in this faith.
The soul was also held by the earlier Fathers to be of an
" intermediate " nature ; that is, it could either live or die.
And when its absolute immortality was asserted, the principle

22 THE SILENCiS OF THE SCRIPTURES
that " where there is life there is hope," produced in due time
the reaction of Restorationism, which settled in the doctrine of
Purgatory. Well might a Catholic bishop speak of the Uni
versalistS as " our estranged brethren.''
In conclusion I have a single proposition to offer. We have
seen that the volume of revelation was made complete without
a word said of the immortality in question. Four thousand
years of converse between God and man elapsed iu entire
silence respecting that doctrine which some of you regard as of
primary importance. Also, Christianity was inaugurated into
the world, and held its way triumphantly for a full century, with
a silence on this subject no less profound. And that, too, when,
if ever, prevailing Avickedness required the terrors of eternal
woe. Grant, now, gentle reader, for argument's sake, that your
doctrine of immortality is true. Yet, forty-one hundred years
of revelation and of missionary work were achieved, so far as
we can see, without mention of it. If the doctrine was true,
the long silence did it no damage whatever. You have heard
of the fabled river, whose waters ran into the sea and through
it, reappearing unsalted and pure in the fountain of Arethusa,
hundreds of miles away. That stream is a picture of the doc
trine of man's immortality during forty-one hundred years, if it
was true. And if it was safe duruig all that silence, never ris
ing to the surface in sparkling beauty until a hundred years
after life and immortality were brought to light, then the doc
trine will incur no danger if it tries the same silence once again.
Hold it, then, if it seems to you true. But trust the experi
ment of holding it in silence. If prophets, and the Messiah,
and apostles, and the early martyrs held it without saying it,
you can confidently do the same thing. You can spare the
time and effort of all the words that utter it. You can fearlessly
drop all the phrases about the soul's immortality, and the like,
and content yourself with the scriptural expressions on the
nature and destiny of man. Use, then, by way of experiment,
the inspired words. Use aU the sacred phrases, whichever way
they may seem to look. Only let me suggest that you employ

ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, 23
them in the ratio or proportion in which they occur in the
Bible. If " life " and " eternal life " are familiar scriptural expres
sions, let them be favorite with you. If some expressions, which
you deem specially fearful, occur rarely, repeat them rarely for
this reason : if a false doctrine once obtains, it is apt to bring
into undue prominence unique passages, interpreting the whole
Bible by them ; whereas they should be, perhaps, explained by
the general tenor of many other expressions.
In this experiment you should avoid all unauthorized com
ment, and especially all misquotation. If you read of eternal
" destruction " do not call it banishment. If you find " ever
lasting punisliment" revealed, you will neither prove nor im
prove any thing by calling it punishments,^ And, when con
venient, allow and invite the Scriptures to explain themselves
by the proper context, or by contrasted or parallel passages.
Short of all this, you may be unwittingly travelling out of the
record, and growing wise above tbat which is written.
Judging both from experience and observation, I predict that
this experiment will cost an effort. Those who have heard the
soul called immortal from their childhood will find that unruly
member, the tongue, betraying them into such words in spite of
great vigilance. But, if the doctrine is unnamed in the Scrip
tures, and if it may possibly be unscriptural, the harder it is to
forbear naming it, the more it is your duty to try. We ought

1 The compiler of the " Bible Text-Book," published by the Boston Am,
Tract Society, tells us that " eternal death" is ^^ described as banishment from
God " in 2 Thes. i. 9, thus stereot3'ping the popular misquotation. For proof
that the phrase "from the presence," etc., denotes not banishment, but the
source of the "destruction," see "Debt and Grace," p. 187; "Christ our
Life," pp. 120, 121.
The old Latin version renders 2 Thes. i. 9 thus: Qui pcsnas dabunt interitus
aiternas, " Who shall suffer the eternal punishments of destruction," etc. ; and
the Vulgate likewise, with the difference of in inteiitu " in destruction." The
Latin translation which we have of Iren^us gives a similar reading, but his
Greek was probably more con-ect. Now, while many allow that extinction ivould
be an eternal punishment, none would call it eternal punishments. The above
twofold mistranslation, in a Version of paramount authority for a thousand
years, goes far to explain the prevalence of the common view, supposing it to
be erroneous.
In the condensed edition of Cruden's Concordance, under the word "Per
suade," the passage in 2 Cor. v. 11 is given with the plural, " terrors." On
the importance of this error see " Christ our Life," pp. 92, 93.

24 THE SILENCE OF THE SCBIPTUEES, ETC.
ever to fine! it easy to use the dialect of the inspired writers.
And if we find this is not easy, it is time for us to suspect and
beware. Believe, then, that the soul is immortal, if you must ; only
try this experiment. I will not frighten you with any predic
tions as to the result of it. No opinion that I or your neigh
bors may entertain ought either to prevent the experiment, or
to mar it. And I will not say how long you should continue it.
I will only say that if Christians should say nothing about the
alleged immortality for a full hundred years, and if the doctrine
is nevertheless true, another Justin Martyr will again put it
into words ; the fountains of so great a truth will in other gen
erations break forth full and clear as ever ; and, so far from
suffering any loss, we shall at least have learned to say the
words of revelation aright.
And yet, important as this experiment with our tongues and
thoughts may be, it would be quite worthless if we did not also
school our hearts to receive the import of the revealed words,
" Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues
of life," The burden of revelation is the love of God, requir
ing, under forfeiture of an infinite boon, the return of our own
love, " God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have everlasting life," All our inquiries into the meaning either
of God's works or his word should be, that we may begin to
love him truly, or that we may learn to love him more. In
vain do we prove or accept the sense of his revelation, if we
do not his will. But if we live unto him, then may we dwell
wir,h him, in that immortality which he alone can give.
PUBLISHED BY G. W. CARLETON, 413 BROADWAY, N. Y.;
WITH THE rOLLOWINa WORKS BY C. F. HUDSON:
DEBT AND GKACE, 479 pages, S1.25 ; CHRIST OUE LIFE, 168 pages, 50 cts. ;
HUMAN DESTINY. A Critique on UniTersaliBm, 135 pages, 45 cts. ; and with the
following Tracts, 75 cts. The Silence of the Scriptures, etc. ; The Rights of Wrong ;
The Rich Man and Lazarus ; Eternal Death is Eternal Punishment ; An Occasion of
Scepticism (5 cfcs. each, S3 per hundred) ; aud Reviewers Reviewed (10 cts.).

3 9002 01349 7863

ij •'' ' '' " '

,-  ', - ,„u< ¥ ,^...._  ll'-,. ....'vJlI* ,j, ,.H,',  X.1