The Bible Examiner — Vol. 8, No. 9 (September, 1853)

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BIBLE EXAMINER.

NO IMMORTALITY, NOR ENDLESS LIFE, EXCEPT THROUGH JESUS CHRIST ALONE.

VOL. VIII.

NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER, 1853.

NO.9·

GEORGE STORRS, EDITOR AND PUBLISHER.

PUBLISHED MONTHLY, At No. 140 Fulton-street, (Up Stairs.) TERMS.-Single copy, for one year, $1; six

tially right." The language in our motto is just such as we would employ; and yet, after all, it may be understood to express more than its distinguished author would consent to. Indeed, we feel sure, that were he questioned as to the meaning of his lines, it would come out that they imported

copies, 5; thirteen copies, 10; always in advance.

ORTHODOXY PARTIALLY RIGHT.

BY WM. GLEN MONCRIEFF, SCOTLAND.

"How loud, how deep, how piercing, are the sounds sent forth by the archangel's trumpet! How does LIFE, at his bidding, find its way to the deepest, securest holds of death; and how do countless forms, beaming with beauty, come forth from the abodes of desolation."---Dr. John Brown's "Resurrection of Life."

In a previous article, entitled "Jesus the Life," we endeavored to unfold the doctrine that the Saviour is the appointed eternalizer of his servants, in opposition to the common idea that they are already by creation partakers of a common immortal

much less than a reader of them, by themselves, might suppose. Such language is common in the lips of popular theologians and Christians; and though it is scriptural, it does not, when employed by them, embody the idea that is lodged in it by the sacred penmen. Be plainer, so one whispers: and we shall. According to the common notion, the souls of believers are at death made perfect in glory, and their bodies being united still to Christ, tarry in their graves till the resurrection. Some may prefer to have the word "spirits" instead of "souls;" at present they may be taken as identical, and of course as being what they are generally understood to designate. The soul of the believer being in fact the man himself,—since as we often hear the soul and not the body is the man,—is incapable of death, and of course had no necessity to exercise dependence on Jesus for life. If the language "immortal soul" means anything, it signifies that it—more correctly each human being—must

tality. We ventured to suggest that the prevailing theology which represents him as the bringer of happiness, and not of endless being, does sadly misrepresent the design of his mission. This painful fact must be pressed distinctly and high into view, that the multitude who unintentionally limit his glory may be compelled to acknowledge its truth, and begin with contrite hearts to exalt him in a more suitable manner. What interest have they in exhibiting him as less than he is? None; and we are convinced that among those who bear his name, and up to the extent of their knowledge mention it with love and honor, there are many who would gladly hail a clear statement of his sublime functions and prerogatives. The influence of names, and companies, and creeds—the terror of reproach, and the dread of worldly loss, may induce many to turn aside from the scriptural facts we are proclaiming, but all are not so enthralled, so weak, so selfish. These powerful influences are neither slighted nor

have lived for ever, even if the Lord Jesus had not appeared in this world. The body may require life from him; all that the soul needs is happiness, and if God judges proper, reunion with a material frame. Man then essentially and substantially requires no gift of life—no resurrection—no revival from complete desolation. Life he never lost; life he does not need to have restored. He is beyond the dominion of the King ot Terrors, and requires no deliverance from his sway. As has been orthodoxically said by Addison,—

"The soul, secured in her existence, smiles At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sing in years, But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the war of elements, The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds."

It is long since the Apostle John, for example, died. But when he expired the dissolution of the saint

ignored by us. Who would not feel for a neighbor when he is sorely tempted; yea, when he is seen unresistingly to suffer himself to be tied hands and feet with cords and withes. Truth is the great emancipator, and hence we must speak it with fulness and love.

We accuse our friends and brethren of substantially setting aside the sublime fact that our common Saviour is the life-giver to his friends, in the most literal sense of these terms. This is no "railing accusation," since we present it in kindness, and with a true desire to share with them a happiness from our views, as undeniably we divide with them a happiness in theirs. In our opinion they "substantially" do what we affirm of them; yet as we allow in the title of this paper, they are "par-

was seeming, not a reality. He die! The idea is scouted by the generality of Christians. At this moment he is viewed in the blaze of heaven, having a crown of fine gold on his head, and his eye kindling with unutterable exstasy. What life—we don't mean happiness—has he found from Jesus? Why, is it not admitted that had Christ Jesus failed to redeem the world, that at this hour John would have been as really alive, though of course dwelling in a very different portion of the universe? Life! What life does he need? His body requires to be re-built and re-animated by the power of Jesus. His body! and that is confessedly not himself; it is only life to a body that he requires from the Redeemer—a body in which he will dwell— a body without which, as representations go, he is very blessed and very diligent.

The archangel's trumpet is to be the signal, then, of life to bodies—not to men. Partially true the common doctrine is, but how insignificant its compass compared with that of the Bible announcements? On the one hand, it tells us that men die, and not their bodies merely—"Man dieth and wasteth away"—man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou"—not a portion of him—"return;" his breath (his breath, or spirit of life) goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." On the other, and of necessity, we read that it is men who are to rise, and not a part that is to be connected with them as an appendage or organ of activity.—"Thy dead men shall live...I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness—the dead in Christ shall rise first—them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him—in Christ shall all be made alive, but every MAN in his own order." Assuming that the soul of man is capable of disembodied existence, and of an immortal nature, the Bible statements about death and the resurrection have been modified, and in many cases exhausted, of meaning altogether. The golden vessel is there, but the wine of truth is gone. As soon as it shall be acknowledged, and we confidently believe the day for this is coming, that the soul of a man is just the organized being himself, and that his spirit is the breath of life which is in his nostrils, and which, at his dissolution, returns to God who gave it. In a word, when it shall be confessed that man is a UNITY, the teaching in the Book on the subjects of death and resurrection will be much more easily apprehended—much more consistently explained.* It is reverence for God that keeps our friends from declaring that entire man needs life. Thinking that the Book announces the dogma of immortal souliism, what else could we expect them to do? They declare Jesus gives life to what needs life, and a miserable convevance it is, since it is not life to a man, but to his future habitation, which is quickened, not so much by any actual infusion of life from Jesus, as by his conjoining to the refined corporye the deathless soul whose presence vitalizes and warms it, like a fire in the centre of a dwelling. Jesus is the lifegiver, then, as a conjoiner of soul and body, not as an infuser of vitality into a resurrected, sainted being. So worketh the heathenish doctrine of immortal-soulism; it misrepresents death's results, and the Redeemer's conquest; tempts a thinking man to believe that if all Jesus does as a life-giver, and the resurrection, is merely what orthodoxy in its blindness assigns him, there are in the Volume a great many words about a very small matter. The church of God will yet blush that this beg-gerly account of the Saviour's life-giving glory was ever held forth by her to the world. When Paul shall take the place of Plato, that hour will arrive.

The final era has come, and the Saviour descends to exert his power. He leaves you fair mansions, and with him are troops of souls---things of life and things of light---needing to be incorporated, and on the eve of entering a fleshly abode! The archangel's trumpet sounds, and forms after the ancient model of humanity, though excelling in beauty and majesty, start forth from the plains of

the astonished world. Each body has a soul thrust into it, as a sword is sent into its scabbard, and the animating force of the sometime exile from materialism, pervades the trunk and limbs as the electric influence diffuses itself through rocks and trees. Eternal power has labored at this humble task; and this we are taught by orthodoxy is the grand triumph of Immanuel—this is his unveiling as the Life!

Time brings on the appointed hour when the Lord Jesus shall revisit this weary world. He comes attended with squadrons of blessed angels, to be the ministers of his will, and the spectators of his glory. He comes with a conqueror's might to do a conqueror's work, and the grandest victory earth has ever witnessed is about to be accomplished. The pious ones who fell asleep in the ages past, are held in bondage by the arm of death. They are in the enemies' land; hushed are their voices; still their hearts; their very thoughts have long since perished. Can these DEAD MEN live? They shall. The trumpet peals through space; "life at His bidding finds its way to the deepest, securest holds of death;" and the innumerable heirs of the first resurrection have awoke—they are clad in the garments of incorruption—they are radiant with the morning flush of perennial youth. Behold the resurrection and the life illustrated and confirmed; the long standing promises literally executed, and the family of the redeemed emancipated from the noisome grave. All heaven is jubilee; the new creation, the sons of the resurrection, take their place on the angelic level, and send forth a triumphant hymn to their glorious Benefactor. "O death where is thy sting, O grave where is thy victory. Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Let it be written, remembered, and pondered, "Blessed' and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection : on such the second death hath no power."

THE DOCTRINE OF THE CROSS.

THE MORALITY OF THE CRUCIFIXION.

BY REV. J. PANTON HAM.

(Continued from page 116.)

We recur, then, to our question concerning the cross. How came the cross, that instrument of ignominy and suffering, to be identified with the history of our Lord Jesus Christ? The cross was the gibbet of the ancient Gentiles, and what has a gibbet to do with the holy Son of God? He who was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,—he who came on an embassy of eternal life from the Immortal God to mortal men, and to prepare them personally for its enjoyments,—how came it to pass that he should ever bend beneath the burden of his own gibbet, and be ignominiously put to death thereon? The question, familiar as it is, is not without novelty, and it is moreover fraught with the most serious and sacred interest. It is not a question of mere theoretic theology, but of practical morals and personal salvation. As a question of history we are referred to the records of the Evangelists.

The death of Christ is uniformly represented in the Scriptures as the most stupendous act of human wickedness, and as originating in the instigation of the arch-spirit of evil,—the Devil.

The impiety of the Jews culminated in the dreadful act of putting the Son of God to death, although even this sin God was prepared to forgive them, if they would afterwards repent and believe in him whom they had so impiously rejected. The presence of Satanic agency in the rejection and crucifixion of Christ is most distinctly recognized; and the whole proceeding, according to the sacred narrative, was diabolic and wicked in the extreme. On this Scriptural view of the death of the Lord Jesus we are desirous of fixing the reader's attention, as a necessary preliminary to the scriptural arguments which we design to erect on it. Notwithstanding he may be fully persuaded of the truth of this statement, we invite him to look in detail at the evidence of its truth, as it will better prepare him to estimate the worth of the important conclusions at which we shall arrive.

And, first, as to the part which Satan had in putting the Lord Jesus to death. After the success of his temptation in Eden, Satan is thus addressed by Jehovah: "I will put enmity ... between thy seed and her seed; it [he, viz., Christ] shall bruise thy head [inflict a mortal wound], and thou shalt bruise his heel,"—inflict a temporary and reparable injury,—that is, cause Christ's death. Now, let it be observed how all the historic facts of the case unite to establish this important fact, that Satan was the great instigator and ultimate cause of the death of Christ. When Christ had chosen his twelve disciples, he thus addressed them: "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" John vi. 70. Judas was thus referred to as the voluntary agent of the Devil in the betrayal of his master. When the moment of the betrayal was near at hand, and the purpose was fully formed, we are told that, "Supper being ended, the Devil having put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him," Jesus, "when he had dipped the sop, gave it to Judas ... and after the sop Satan entered into him." John xiii. 2, 27. As the moment of the betrayal drew on, and the preparations for its accomplishment were being made, Jesus said to his disciples: "The Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me." John xiv. 30. And when the actual arrest took place, and the person of the Redeemer, under the guidance of Judas, was seized, addressing "the Chief Priests, and captains of the Temple, and the elders which were come to him," Jesus said, "This is your hour, and the Power of darkness." Luke xxii. 53. Thus is it apparent, on the testimony of our Lord himself, that at every important step of the progress of this unparalleled crime, Satan is recognized as the active instigatory agent. The betrayal and crucifixion of Christ was therefore, in the most emphatic sense, diabolical; and in the sight of God was the highest possible expression of human wickedness.

The historic narrative of events subsequent to the betrayal and arrest of Christ unite to show that this great tragedy exhibits the consummation of human guilt, and placed all who had anything to do with it in the position of criminals deserving the severest marks of the Divine displeasure.

Jesus was conveyed into the palace of the Roman Pilate, and arraigned at the bar of a Roman

Court of Justice. At this moment the wife of the Procurator Pilate sends an urgent message to her husband. "Have thou nothing to do," she says, "with that just person, for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him." Seeing that he could not resist the clamor of the infuriated people, Pilate, who had labored hard to release Christ, called for water, according to the custom of the times, and washing his hands as an act of solemn abjuration, exclaimed in the presence of them all, "I am innocent of the blood of this just person." "I find in him no fault at all." Previous to this disclaimer of Pilate of any participation in the national guilt of putting Christ to death, Judas the traitor had gone to the Chief Priests in the vain hope of recovering the victim of his avarice, and finding that his bargain of blood could not be revoked, he threw down the bribe, exclaiming, "I have betrayed the innocent blood," and, tormented with remorse and despair, he went and hanged himself. The officer of the guard in charge of the execution of Christ, and also they that were with him, shocked at this act of popular outrage, exclaimed, "Truly this was a righteous man!" "Truly this was the Son of God!" Here is the testimony of all the principals concerned in the death of Christ, and that testimony is to the innocence of Jesus, his unmerited condemnation, and their own guilt.

The view taken by our Lord himself of this awful transaction exhibits it in the same sinful light. He foretold it to his disciples as an act of basest ingratitude,—as a betrayal. In such solemn and condemnatory terms does he remark upon both his betrayal and the betrayer,—"The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It had been good for that man if he had not been born." How emphatically does he express the moral character of this last tragedy of his life, when arousing his disciples from their sleep in Gethsemane he exclaimed, "The hour is come; behold, the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners." Need we remind the reader of that wonderful scene on Olivet, when Jesus saw the city and wept over it? Were not those tears wept because of the high hand Jerusalem, the holy city, was about to lift up against God and his Christ? "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered you together as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not." What can be more decisive of the morality of Christ's capture and crucifixion than his own declaration to Pilate. "He that delivered me to thee hath the greater sin." The whole proceeding was one of high criminality before God, and all who had aught to do with it were chargeable with less or "greater sin." The merciful and meek sufferer knew the nature of his murderers' crime,—how highly offensive it was to the "righteous Father;" hence he prayed for their forgiveness,—"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

And can we fail to interpret the expressive utterance of the Divine feeling on this guilty occasion, when there spread over the land a preternatural darkness from the sixth to the ninth hour, when the earth heaved with terrific violence, riving asunder rocks, and exposing the sleeping-places of the dead? Was not this expressive, in part at least, of the displeasure of the Great Looker-on, that the race whom he mercifully designed to ransom by the medial agency of his well-beloved Son should cast out that beloved Son and destroy him?

Whether or not we interpret aright this preternatural circumstance, none will doubt that God was highly displeased that he should, in the person of his Son, come unto his own, and his own should not receive him. In the view of the parable of the wicked husbandmen, which sets forth the morality of our Lord's treatment, and the estimation in which God, as the lord of the vineyard, regarded his Son's rejection, it will not be doubted that the crucifixion of Christ, so far from being acceptable to God, or demanded by any principle of his perfect moral government, was altogether a guilty violation of his holy will, and a daring defiance of his law and authority. Otherwise, what meant our Lord when he asked his auditors, "When the Lord of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?" Did he not extort the true judgment from the lips of the men who were about to enact the part of those very "husbandmen," when they say unto him, "He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard to other husbandmen"? "Therefore," he replied—"therefore (that is, because you are about to cast the Son of God out of the vineyard and slay him,) the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof,"—a judgment which was fearfully fulfilled in their final national overthrow and dispersion among the nations of the world.

We have detailed the several historic facts setting forth the real moral character of the crucifixion of Christ. We have seen the judgment of Christ as to the morality of this national act of the Jewish people; and we have further seen that God himself concurs in the general condemnation of this tragic act as a high misdemeanor against truth, and justice, and his own high authority. We may expect then that our Lord's Apostles would in their public preaching, exhibit the national rejection of Christ in the same moral light, as a great sin to be repented of, and needing the pardon of God. Let the following discourses of the Apostles suffice to show the views they entertain of the crucifixion of their Master. On the occasions of their first public addresses, the Apostles accuse their countrymen of a most foul murder. "Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." "Ye denied the Holy one and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted you, and killed the Prince of Life. . . . "And now, brethren," says Peter, "I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers." The Apostles are careful to assure their hearers that they had not taken God by surprise, or thwarted his plans, for that he had foreseen that such a treatment his beloved Son would receive at their hands. They make, too, all the allowance that charity can permit in the awful part taken both by the people and their rulers in this tragic affair; but they never allude to the crucifixion of Christ as being designed to satisfy any judicial demands of the law of God, or to secure the moral efficiency of the Divine government. They speak only of it, as of a murder most foul; as a wicked defiance of all law and order, human and divine; and call upon the perpetrators and connivers at this great wickedness to

seek the forgiveness of their crime in shedding the blood of God's holy and well-beloved Son. "Repent," is their earnest exhortation. "Repent ye, therefore, and be converted," for this Jesus whom ye have rejected by crucifying him, is that prophet concerning whom "Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me, him shall ye hear in all things, whatsoever he shall say unto you."

Here, then, are gathered together, the plain, unvarnished facts, in reference to that great historic fact, the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ; and here are the commentaries, so to speak, of God, of Christ, and of the first Christian preachers, on that fact. Now, we appeal to the calm, enlightened intelligence—we appeal to the most reverential feelings of our readers—and ask, Does the Scriptural exhibition of the crucifixion of Christ give any countenance to the popular apprehension of its spiritual import, which it is maintained is the true meaning of the Christian Atonement? Does it harmonize with the history which we have been briefly reviewing, that the crucifixion of our Lord was demanded for the violated honor of the Divine government? Does it, as set forth in the New Testament, look like a fact that was necessary to restore moral harmony between God and his rebellious creatures? It is so represented in the scheme of popular Christianity. Mark, reader, the wide divarication between the sacred record and the modern ascendant creed. The former, as we have seen, proclaims the crucifixion to be a crime, needing to be mourned over and repented of—the latter declares it to be the very apex of judicial equity. The former pronounces a series of condemnations on it, as an act uncalled for and wicked; it was condemned by all the principals concerned therein—the betrayer, the Roman Judge and his wife, the Captain of the Roman Guard, and the spectators of the execution—it was condemned by Christ, by God, and by the Apostles: the latter pronounces an unqualified approval of it as an event demanded for the glory of God and the eternal good of men. The former represents Satan as the ultimate author, and wicked men as the proximate authors of the death of Christ: the latter maintains that God himself was the contriver and author of this great event. The former shows that Christ was upheld and ministered to by his Heavenly Father while enduring the bitter opposition and wrath of men: the latter insists that Christ's death was an evidence of his Father's judicial rejection, and that he was then enduring the infinite wrath of God. The former shows that the crucifixion of Christ was an act most displeasing and offensive to God: the latter that it was designed by God himself for his own personal satisfaction as the Moral Governor of the world. The former asserts that the death of Christ was the crowning expression of his perfect personal obedience to the holy law of God, and therefore highly meritorious, and constituting him a perfect example to the world: the latter insists that the death of Christ on the cross was a judicial punishment which God inflicted upon him as the substitute in behalf of a guilty race. The former exhibits the sufferings and death of Christ for the imitation of the Church, who are required, like their Master, to be "obedient unto death;" the latter declares that the sufferings and death of Christ are beyond all imitation, as not being in their nature and design exemplary, but judicial, and therefore peculiar and unique.

We need not pursue further the obvious contrasts between the New Testament and the popular exhibitions of the death of Christ. The thoughtful reader will see and acknowledge that there are very great contrasts between these two candidates for the faith of mankind; and in vain will he seek to reconcile and identify them. He must accept one or the other—he cannot retain

ity. We merely deny the force of any argument from one to the other; and moreover, that the latter, apart from express revelation (where is this revelation given?) is anything more than a most precarious conclusion from guesses and presumptions. This is amply proved by the wavering tone of all reasoning and speculation among the greatest masters of both, previous to the Christian revelation; and it is at that period, and at that better than any other, that we can apply the true test of the limits of merely human speculation on the subject." Edinburgh Review, No. 193, pp. 56, 57.

MATTER CAPABLE OF THINKING.

both. The Bible and the popular exhibitions of the death of Christ are widely divergent from each other: they have scarcely aught in common but the mutual recognition of the simple historic fact, that Christ suffered death on the cross.

(To be Continued.)

HUMAN

MATERIALISM.

We continue our extracts from the "Appendix" of Br. Moncrieff's work on the Hebrew and Greek terms for spirit. Let them be read and pondered well; and may reason return to men who have so long talked about that which they understood not.

IMMATERIALITY AND IMMORTALITY.

The following extract goes on the supposition that the "soul" and "spirit" of man are identical, and that his spirit is immaterial, which we have

cording to me, the knowledge we have being by our ideas, and our idea of matter, in general, being a solid substance, and our idea of body a solid, extended, figured substance; if I admit matter to be capable of thinking, I confound the idea of matter with the idea of a spirit; to which I answer, no; no more than I confound the idea of matter with the idea of an horse, when I say that matter, in general, is a solid external substance, and that a horse is a material animal, or an extended, solid substance, with sense and spontaneous motion.

The idea of matter is an extended, solid substance; wherever there is such a substance, there is matter, and the essence of matter, whatever other qualities, not contained in that essence, it shall please God to superadd to it. For example, God creates an extended, solid substance, without the superadding anything else to it, and so we may consider it at rest: to some parts of it he superadds motion, but it has still the essence of matter: other

amply shown is a baseless conceit. Letting the writer assume his own premises, letting him, in fact, assume the common theory about the human spirit, his reasoning is admirable, and displays in a telling manner, the weakness of all inferences concerning the deathlessness of man as resulting from the nature of his spirit.

"The argument from immateriality to immortality, is evidently illogical: and though it has satisfied many intelligent philosophers, ought not, we think, to satisfy, and, if understood, would not satisfy, even an intelligent flea, to say nothing of an elephant. For if men would but confine themselves to what they know, they would see that nothing is more clear than the consciousness that the origin or continued existence, whether of body or spirit, depends on no will of theirs; upon nothing less than the fiat of that Power that created both; and certainly none ought to have seen this more clearly than Descartes himself, who, as we

parts of it he frames into plants, with all the excellence of vegetation, life, and beauty, which is to be found in a rose, or a peach tree, &c., above the essence of matter, in general, but it is still but matter: to other parts he adds sense and spontaneous motion, and those other properties that are to be found in an elephant. Hitherto it is not doubted, but the power of God may go, and that the properties of a rose, a peach, or an elephant, superadded to matter, change not the properties of matter; but matter is, in these things, matter still. But if one venture to go one step further, and say, God may give to matter, thought, reason, and volition, as well as sense and spontaneous motion, there are men ready presently to limit the power of the Omnipotent Creator, and tell us "he cannot do it, because it destroys the essence, or changes the essential properties of matter." To make good which assertion, they have no more to say but that thought and reason are not included

have seen, makes the conservation of his immaterial self, from moment to moment, a distinct proof of the existence of the Deity. As far as we can see, therefore, material forms may, if the Divine will so should please, be immortal: and in like manner, immaterial essences, by the same fiat may become mortal. The utmost that the doctrine of immateriality infers is, that it exempts the soul from certain known causes of change or dissolution, but it may have a term of its own, for aught we know; a cause of decay peculiar to itself. The argument is about as sound as if, having ascertained that a man will not die of consumption, we were to infer that neither will he die of anything else.

We are firmly convinced of the truth of the great doctrine of the soul's immateriality and immortalin the essence of matter. I grant it; but whatever excellency, not contained in its essence, be superadded to matter, it does not destroy the essence of matter, if it leaves it an extended, solid substance ; wherever that is, there is the essence of matter ; and if everything of greater perfection, superadded to such a substance, destroys the essence of matter, what will become of the essence of matter in a plant or an animal, whose properties far exceed those of a mere extended, solid substance ?

But it is farther urged, that we cannot conceive how matter can think. I grant it; but to argue from thence, that God, therefore, cannot give to matter a faculty of thinking, is to say, God's Omnipotency is limited to a narrow compass, because man's understanding is so; and brings down God's infinite power to the size of our capacities.

If God can give no power to any parts of matter but what man can account for, from the essence of matter, in general; if all such qualities and properties must destroy the essence or change the essential properties of matter, which are to our conceptions above it, and we cannot conceive to be the natural consequence of that essence; it is plain that the essence of matter is destroyed, and its essential properties changed, in most of the sensible part of this our system. For it is visible that all the planets have revolutions around certain remote centres, which I would have any one explain, or make conceivable by the bare essence, or natural powers depending on the essence of matter in general, without something added to that essence which we cannot conceive; for the moving of matter in a crooked line, or the attraction of matter by matter, is all that can be said in the case; either of which it is above our reach to derive from the essence of matter, or body in general; though one of these two must unavoidably be allowed to be superadded, in this instance, to the essence of matter in general. The Omnipotent Creator advised not with us in the making of the world, and his ways are not the less excellent because they are past our finding out.

For to keep within the present subject of the power of thinking and self-motion, bestowed by Omnipotent power on some part of the matter; the objection to this is, I cannot conceive how matter should think. What is the consequence? ergo, (therefore,) God cannot give it a power to think. Let this stand for a good reason, and then proceed in other cases by the same. You cannot conceive how matter can attract matter, at any distance, much less at the distance of 1,000,000 miles; ergo, God cannot give it such a power! &c.

Though to me sensation be comprehended under thinking in general, yet in the foregoing discourse, I have spoken of sense in brutes, as distinct from thinking, because your Lordship, as I remember, speaks of sense in brutes. But here I take liberty to observe, that if your Lordship allows brutes to have sensation, it will follow, either that God can, and doth, give to some parcels of matter a power of perception and thinking, or that all animals have immaterial, and consequently, according to your Lordship, immortal souls, as well as men, and to say that fleas, mites, &c., have immortal souls, as well as men, will possibly be looked on as going a great way to serve an hypothesis, and it would not very well agree with what your Lordship says, Ans. 2, p. 64."—Locke to the Bishop of Worcester; Works Fol. Ed.1740, Vol.I., pp.588,589,590-592.

PRES. EDWARDS ON FUTURE PUNISHMENT.

NOTES BY REV. J. PANTON HAM, ENGLAND.

President Edwards, a most impressive preacher of the popular theory of future punishment, thus describes the portion of the wicked after this life:

"The soul of a wicked man at its departure from the body will be made immediately sensible that it is before an infinitely holy and dreadful God, and his own final Judge; and will then see how terrible a God he is, how infinitely he hates sin; he will be

sensible of the greatness of God's anger against sin, and how dreadful is his displeasure. Then will he be sensible of the dreadful majesty and power of God, and how fearful a thing it is to fall into his hands. Then the soul shall come naked with all its guilt, and in all its filthiness, a vile, loathsome, abominable creature, an enemy to God, a rebel against him, with the guilt of all its rebellion and disregard of God's commands, and contempt of his authority, and slight of the glorious Gospel, before God as its judge. This will fill the soul with horror and amazement. As soon as ever the soul parts from the body, from that moment the case will be absolutely determined; there will then be an end for ever to all hope, to everything that men hang upon in this life; the soul then shall know certainly that it is to be miserable to all eternity, without any remedy. It shall see that God is its enemy; it shall see its judge clothed in his wrath and vengeance. Then its misery will begin, it will that moment be swallowed up in despair; the great gulf will be fixed between it and happiness, the door of mercy will be forever shut up, the irrevocable sentence will be passed. Then shall the wicked know what is before them. Before the soul was in distress for fear how it would be; but now, who can conceive the amazement that fills it that moment when all hope is cut off, and it knows that there never will be any difference!

"We may well suppose that when a wicked man dies, his soul is seized by wicked angels: and that they are round his bed ready to seize the miserable soul as soon as it is parted from the body. And with what fierceness and fury do those cruel spirits fly upon their prey; and the soul shall be left in their hands. There shall be no good angels to guard and defend it. God will take no care of it; there is nothing to help it against those cruel spirits that shall lay hold of it, carry it to hell, there to torment it for ever! God will leave it wholly in their hands, and will give it up to their possession when it comes to die; and it shall be carried down to hell, to the abode of devils and damned spirits. If the fear of hell on a death-bed sometimes fills the wicked with amazement, how will they be overwhelmed when they feel its torments, when they shall feel them not only as great, but far greater than their fears! They will find them far beyond what they could conceive of before they felt them; for none know the power of God's anger but they that experience it. Ps. xc. 11: 'Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.'"

Surely not such "anger" and "wrath" as is here depicted!

"Departed spirits of wicked men," says Pres. Edwards, "are doubtless carried to some particular place in the universe, which God has prepared to be the receptacle of his wicked, rebellious, and miserable subjects: a place where God's avenging justice shall be glorified; a place built to be the prison where the devils and wicked men are reserved till the day of judgment."

Can "God's avenging justice" be "glorified" by permitting one order of his intelligent and apostate creatures to be the prey and malignant sport of another order of apostate beings! Our author moreover, represents the devils as most willing and delighted agents in fulfilling their hellish mission as the tormentors of wicked men!

So far, then, as the devils are concerned, hell is to their taste—its fiendish occupation their delight. For them hell is a heaven—a place of happiness rather than of misery! Strange theory of future punishment is this!

"Here," proceeds President Edwards, "the souls of wicked men shall suffer extreme and amazing misery in a separate state until the resurrection. This misery is not indeed their full punishment; nor is the happiness of the saints before the day of judgment, their full happiness. It is with the souls of wicked men as it is with devils. Though the devils suffer extreme torment now, yet they do not suffer their complete punishment."

What inconsistency is here? President Edwards wards represents first all the devils as the most busy and delighted agents of Divine vengeance, and then affirms that they are themselves all while the prey of extreme torments! And with even greater than "extreme torment" in prospect after the decisions of the judgment.

"They are reserved," he proceeds, "in the state they are in; and for what are they preserved but for a greater degree of punishment? . . . But yet they are there (in the intermediate state as separate souls and apostate demons,) in extreme and inconceivable misery; they are there deprived of all good; they have no rest nor comfort; and they are subject to the wrath of God; God there executes wrath on them without mercy, and they are swallowed up in wrath. . . . And those who go to hell never can escape thence; there they remain imprisoned till the day of judgment, and their torments remain continually. Those wicked men who died many years ago their souls went to hell, and there they are still; those who went to hell in former ages of the world have been in hell ever since, all the while suffering torment. They have nothing else to spend their time in there, but to suffer torment; they are kept in being for no other purpose; (!) and though they have many companions in hell, yet they are no comfort to them, for there is no friend, no love, no pity, no quietness, no prospect, no hope."

Can the multitude of professing Christians really believe this doctrine, and not weep as though their "head were waters, and their eyes a fountain of tears," at the reflection that at this, and at every moment of their lives, hundreds and thousands of their fellow-creatures are actually enduring these expressible sufferings? Perhaps, reader, thou hast lost a beloved friend concerning whom thou hast no hope—canst thou think that such is his present awful condition, and that the following description of our sadly mistaken author, yet awaits him in the eternal future?

"The separate souls of the wicked, besides the present misery they now suffer, shall be in amazing fear of the more full punishment at the day of judgment. Though their punishment in their separate state, be exceedingly dreadful, and far more than

they can bear, (!) though it be so great as to sink and crush them, yet this is not all; (!) they are reserved for a much greater and more dreadful punishment (!) at the day of judgment: their torment will then be vastly augmented, and continue in that augmentation to all eternity (!) Their punishment will be so much greater then, that their misery in this separate state is but an imprisonment before an execution."

We are told that the " imprisonment" is " far more than they can bear," and " so great as to sink and crush them ;" how then can the wretched objects of such punishment endure " a much greater and more dreadful punishment, which is to be " vastly augmented and continue in that augmentation to all eternity !" Both the language and the horrid conception lose their awful gravity in this anti-climax of positive absurdity.

He proceeds: "When we are under any great pain of body at any time, how do we dread the least addition to it! its continuance is greatly dreaded, much more its increase. How much more will those separate spirits that suffer the torments of hell, dread that augmentation and completing of their torment, which there will be at the day of judgment, when what they feel already, is vastly more than they can support themselves; when they shall be, as it were, begging one drop of water to cool their tongues, when they would give ten thousand worlds for the least abatement of their misery? How sinking will it be to think, that instead of that the day is coming when God shall come forth out of heaven, to sentence them to a far more dreadful degree of misery, and to continue them under it for ever! . . . The damned in hell know not the time when the day of judgment shall be, but when the time comes it will be made known, and it will be the most dreadful news that ever was told in that world of misery. It is always a doleful time in hell; the world of darkness is always full of shrieks and doleful cries; but when the news is heard, that the day appointed for the judgment is come, hell will be filled with louder shrieks and more dreadful cries than ever before. . . . Then must the souls of the wicked come up to be united to their bodies, and stand before their Judge. They shall not come willingly, but shall be dragged forth as a malefactor is dragged out of his dungeon to execution. . . . They will hang back, but must come; the devils and damned spirits must come up together. . . . Then the sentence shall be executed. When the Judge bids them depart, they must go, however loth, yet they must go, . . . and that great company of devils and wicked men must then enter those everlasting burnings to which they are sentenced.

"In this condition they shall remain throughout the never ending ages of eternity. Their punishment shall be then complete, and it shall remain in this completion for ever. Now shall all that come upon them which they so long trembled for fear of, while their souls were in a separate state. They will dwell in a fire that never shall be quenched, and here they must wear out eternity. Here they must wear out one thousand years after another, and that without end. There is no reckoning up the millions of years, or millions of ages; all arithmetic here fails, no rules of multiplication can reach he amount, for there is no end.

They shall have nothing to do to pass away their eternity, but to conflict with those torments: this will be their work for ever and ever; God shall have no other use or employment for them; this is the way that they must answer the end of their being. (!!) And they never shall have any rest, nor any atonement, but their torments will hold up to their height, and shall never go any easier by their being accustomed to them. Time will seem long to them, every moment will seem long to them, but they shall never have done with the ages of their torment."—Works, vol. ii. pp. 880-883, edit. 1840.

So preached the great Jonathan Edwards, one of the acutest metaphysicians that the world has ever seen. A good man, too, and a believer in the paternity of God, and the declaration of Scripture that "God is love." Is it possible that divine justice can demand such a vindication as he represents? It is not possible! That doctrine is monstrous; and must be as offensive to the holy and good Jehovah, as it is astounding to men. It is worthy of remark how such descriptions of the future punishment are destitute of Scripture phraseology; and when Scripture is quoted, it is always those passages which are capable of, and which, by comparison with other parts of the sacred writings, demand a more reasonable interpretation.

Edwards thus describes the influence which the sight of the torments of the condemned in hell will have upon the glorified saints:—

"When they (the saints) shall see how miserable others of their fellow-creatures are, who were naturally in the same circumstances with themselves; when they shall see the smoke of their torment, and the raging of the flames of their burning, and hear their dolorous shrieks and cries, and consider that they, in the meantime, are in the most blissful state, and shall surely be in it to all eternity; how will they rejoice, . . . How joyfully will they sing to God and the Lamb, WHEN THEY BEHOLD THIS!" —Works, vol. ii. p. 209, edit. 1840.

This is the language of Edwards as a theologian, not of Edwards the man and the Christian. Neither humanity nor religion will endure a representation so horribly revolting. If such a spectacle will excite the rapturous pleasure of the saints, it will be no pleasure to the God of saints. How strikingly does the following contrast with the above! "Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die, saith the Lord God; and not that he should return from his ways and live? . . I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves and live ye."—Ezekiel xviii. 23, 32.

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NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER, 1853.

THE AWAKENING ADVANCES.—We noticed the " Awakening Begun" in our last, but little thought we would have so soon to record the advancing of the good work; but the " Christian Advocate and Journal," the great organ of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America, has given its million power to strike a blow for liberty of conscience, and to drive to death the engines of clerical power human creeds. It opens its battery, July 28th, editorially, as follows, under the head of " Church Government":—

After ages of controversy, no one has been able to deduce from the Scriptures any form of Church government instituted by our Lord and his apostles, and made of perpetual obligation on Christians through future time; nor is there any Christian denomination on earth that can claim to be organized upon a plan evidently inferred from the primitive model of the Apostolic Church. Indeed, there does not appear to have been an entire uniformity of plan in the prudential regulations of the numerous Churches founded by the apostles. As the first converts were Jews, it was natural that they should copy the model of the synagogues, in regard to order and government, but not as divinely appointed; for the synagogues themselves were not a divine institution, but a prudential human arrangement, adopted after the return from the Babylonish captivity. But in Churches, either wholly formed of heathen converts, or with only a small intermixture of Jews, it is likely that the limited polity of the synagogue could not be stretched to the necessities of Christian organizations, and were more or less departed from as occasion demanded. It is evident from the history of our Lord's sojourn and ministry, given by the evangelists, that he did not institute any particular or exclusive form of Church organization among his disciples; and in the commission which he gave to his apostles, after his resurrection, there is not a syllable concerning Church government."

The ground here occupied we took twelve years ago, and on it we have stood from that time till now. That the followers of Christ will and should assemble together is true; but as love brings them together, so love must keep them in one body; and any attempt to force unity is the direct way to "cause divisions and offences;" and such persons always end in bigotry and a persecuting sectarianism, which destroys love, and renders the actors any thing but loving followers of Christ.

The editor of the Christian Advocate, Dr. T. E. Bond, proceeds to say, that Christ,

To qualify his apostles for the exercise of the ministry he had committed to them, he promises that the Comforter, which he would send in his name, shall bring to their remembrance whatsoever he had said to them—the whole system of doctrine he had orally communicated to them, and so enlighten their understandings as to enable them to comprehend its import and application.

He does not promise to communicate to them a new gospel, through the Holy Spirit, or to make any addition to that he had already taught: and accordingly St. Paul expressly disclaims any authority over the FAITH of his converts, and forbids them to receive any other gospel, though he himself, or an angel from heaven, should come to them teaching it. Like the law, communicated orally by Jehovah on Mount Sinai, the gospel communicated by our Lord to his chosen apostles, or messengers, was complete, and could admit of neither alteration nor addition. And this FAITH once delivered to the saints was communicated entire to each of those messengers. They had no occasion to settle the terms of the glad tidings they were to bear "to every creature" by conference or consultation, and by a majority of votes. Hence the apostle Paul, when he received his commission from our Lord himself, nearly thirty years after his ascension, received, at the same time, an oral communication of the whole gospel, and entered at once upon the exercise of his ministry without "consulting with flesh and blood"—without conference with any of the other apostles. Of this he assures us in the most unequivocal manner.

From whence, then, is the notion derived, that the apostles constituted an ecclesiastical corporation, or acted upon any of the principles which control or regulate such bodies? There is no intimation of it in the Scriptures. If they had been directed so to act, we should find it in the record of the Acts of the Apostles, by their historian, St. Luke; but there is no account in this history of any convention or assembly of an apostolic college. They never so settled the "faith once delivered to the saints." It never was determined by vote in a council of those to whom it had been orally communicated severally, and entirely, by their Lord. Whence, then, have divines and theologians derived this notion of an apostolic corporation, or college?

This is a home thrust; and, if we mistake not, will make quite a fluttering among creed makers. We are glad to find Dr. Bond, in this matter, occupying the same ground as Dr. McCulloh, whose work we so recently noticed; ground which we have, substantially, occupied the last twelve years; and it is the only position that can be occupied and stand on the Bible. Those who leave this position leave the Bible to follow the traditions of men, in our judgment. Dr. Bond goes on to say:

But if the apostles themselves did not act as a corporation, did they constitute and appoint any such ecclesiastical corporation to succeed to such authority after their departure? The presumption is against it; and the Scriptures do not warrant it. The apostles taught only what their Lord had taught them; and they have left their testimony of record for the individual instruction of all men. The Holy Scriptures contain the faith at first delivered to the saints—the whole gospel message as delivered by our Lord to his apostles; and in these records we find no account of their having instituted an ecclesiastical corporation, either of bishops, presbyters, or elders, with power to prescribe authoratively the faith of the gospel. The apostles

themselves neither had nor exercised any such authority as a college, or corporation : they only declared and published the faith, the gospel, as revealed to them personally by Him who gave them their commission. How, then, could they delegate such powers to others? To claim such authority has been the great sin of the Churches, and the fruitful source of spiritual pr de and corruption, both of doctrine and discipline, in all ages since the apostles and their immediate converts were removed from the earth ; if it was not the mystery of iniquity which had already begun to work, even under the apostolic administration, and of which the great apostle to the Gentiles apprises us.

Here again is good sound sense, and truth well spoken. We do hope it will be laid to heart by the large denomination Dr. Bond is connected with. If it is heeded they will soon find revolution is the order of the day in ecclesiastical matters, and Christian men will begin to feel that their responsibility is to God and not to self-constituted bodies who usurp the place of God in matters of faith. Truly has Dr. B. said, "to prescribe authoratively the faith of the gospel * has been the great sin of the Churches," &c. May the Lord help ministers and laymen to see this truth, and to cast away this lordship and come back to the primitive simplicity of "forbearing one another in love," while differences of opinion may and will exist on various points in reference to Bible teaching. Liberty to express our differences in a Christian spirit—that is, the spirit of love—must be enjoyed, and it must not interrupt Christian affection. When this point is attained the direct tendency will be to unity of faith, and once more it will be said "See how these Christians love one another."

Dr. Bond in speaking of primitive congregations in their church action, says:

If any church or society had enacted a rule which contravened a law of Christ, or added any Christian obligation not in conformity with the faith of the Gospel, it would have been nugatory, and of no effect; no one church, nor any confederation of churches, being authorized to alter or amend the divine code, for this code was complete. It was not merely a constitution authorizing subordinate legislation under its provisions, and committing such legislation to the churches, either in their individual or confederate capacities, much less to a corporation of bishops or presbyters. The conditions of salvation, and consequently the conditions of church fellowship, had been fixed and absolutely determined by the Head of the Church himself, and communicated to his chosen messengers. Over these the apostles themselves had no dominion—could not alter or substitute; and surely no higher authority than theirs existed in the primitive church. Rules and regulations for carrying into effect the commandments of Christ, belonged to every church organization, according to the circumstances in which they were providentially placed, but beyond this, no church, whether individual or confederate, had a right to go.

To go further would have been to 'lord it over Christ's heritage,' and this would have been to renounce their allegiance to the only rightful Lord and Lawgiver, to whom is given by the Father all power in heaven and in earth."

Here also is truth clearly expressed: may it be pondered well. The Doctor next proceeds to show when and how the church was led away from its primitive simplicity, and speaks as follows:

Very early in the third century, if not earlier, this restriction upon ecclesiastical authority was lost sight of, and the consequence was that the "commandments of men" were substituted for the commandments of Christ. The clergy assumed to be a divine corporation, with authority to dictate the faith of the church; to exclude from the ministry all who did not subscribe to their dogmas; and which dogmas were decided upon by vote taken in council, and determined by majorities, whose decisions everybody knows are not infallible. And hence both the faith and the discipline of the church came to rest upon canons and councils, not upon the Scriptures; and which canons are often contradictory of each other, and moreover mutable, as succeeding councils claim the right to alter and amend the laws made by those which preceded them.

After this expose of the "clergy" and their as sumptions, the Doctor speaks out in the following manly and Christian language, which if we had uttered it—and we have more than once—would have been treated with contempt. May it now be heeded, seeing it comes in the organ of the Methodist Episcopal church. He says:

We think the time has come to repudiate menmade canons, and confessions of faith, and go back to the Scriptures as the perfect rule, and the only perfect rule of both faith and practice. These "have God for their author, salvation for their end, and truth, without any admixture of error, for their matter." On the Scriptures, then, we can safely rely, as we cannot rely upon any human dictation, whether of the many or the few—whether of individual theologians, or doctors of divinity; or of ecclesiastical corporations, assuming, without divine warranty, to impose their notions upon the church of Christ, under the names of canons, or creeds, or confessions of faith. "To the law and to the testimony," if they speak not according to these, it is because there is no light in them.

This really makes us breathe easier. Praise the Lord that the Awakening is advancing.

Dr. Bond concludes in the following strong and manly language, which we commend to all creed-bound souls, and hope they may feel that the time has come for Christian men to enjoy a little liberty to think for themselves, without incurring the imputation of being infidels, because they cannot subscribe to those sectarian dogmas which have been forced on us from our childhood by some well-meaning, but superstitious, offshoots from Papal ignorance and blasphemy; for such is the character of

much that is passed for "Orthodox." Dr. Bond's concluding remarks are as follows:

But it may be asked. Is every man qualified to derive a saving knowledge of Gospel truth from the Bible, or to ascertain the authenticity and truth of the Scriptures without receiving them upon the testimony of the Church? To both questions we answer, Yes—yes, absolutely and unqualifiedly. Every reader or hearer can derive a knowledge of the faith that saves him from the Scriptures, much more certainly than from the creeds and confessions dictated by human authority; for these often conflict with each other, and to decide which is right he must enter into the interminable labyrinth of metaphysical speculation. And to take any one of these authorities upon trust, is to renounce all accountability whatever, for what he believes or does. But he cannot be released from either one or the other, by any man or set of men. We are not allowed to call any man master or lord of our faith. But our only rightful Lord and Sovereign, has said, that "if any man will do the will of my Father, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be true." He cannot but see the requirements of the Gospel, and if he will comply, he will feel their remedial efficacy on his heart and life, and know they are of God. He will see, too, that the Gospel confers upon him the right to go to the throne of the heavenly grace, through the mediation of his great High Priest, for all Gospel blessings, and among them for divine illumination. "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." This wisdom cometh down from the "Father of Lights;" not through ecclesiastical corporations or councils, and adulterated by the profane admixture of metaphysical speculation, but pure from the fountain of truth itself, and direct to individual consciousness. The unlettered, humble believer has then only to remember the promise of his Lord: "Then shall ye know, if ye follow on to know;" and thus be led into all "the length, and breadth, and depth, and height" of Gospel privileges and blessings; and know the love of God that passeth human understanding in the exercise of its natural powers: "For because he is a son, God sends forth the spirit of his Son into his heart, crying, Abba Father."

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