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refers to infants, idiots, maniacs, and heathens, that I can well leave with our Omniscient and infinitely benignant Sovereign. I am I am not unaware of the imaginary pictures, rude caricatures, and unkind imputations which the opponents of this doctrine employ; but misrepresentations we will leave to others. Sin must have in the sight of God an inconceivable deformity and aggravation, when

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think that in delivering human beings from its consequences His own "Compeer and Fellow" had to become man, and suffer and die. Here we see that the malignity of sin should be considered in connection with the claims and relationships of our Maker, and the solemn obligations it violates. are indissolubly bound to a lawgiver of infinite perfections, and to a destiny of interminable duration. If we break away from the authority of the Bible, again I ask, where are we? A thousand visions come and go, and leave us in darkness profound. The act of disobedience by our first parents in the Garden of Eden appears trivial, and the time of committing it could not have been of hours, yet this transgression has been followed by inconceivably sad and prolonged consequences. We know not how long the fallen angels were in disobedience and rebellion, but the Bible declares that for their wickedness they are consigned to everlasting perdition, and it is further as plainly stated that those of our race who die in wickedness will share their doom. The outward act of sin is temporary, but the defilement and purposes of the heart cannot be so considered. Evil is what it is in itself, in its dispositions and tendencies. Compared with eternity this span of earthly existence is indeed short, but we must not forget that with ourselves the opportunities of obtaining salvation, and fleeing from the wrath to come, are well-nigh as numerous as the days of our existence. If our period of probation

be unimproved, whether by indulging in foul deeds of open ungodliness, by resisting the strivings of the Spirit, by neglecting the admonitions and instructions of providence, or by refusing to do good and honour God; if death find us in this state, and the Bible be true, an eternity of condemnation, (since sin tends in its own nature to perpetuate its existence and increase its malignity,) is an inevitable consequence.

ALIQUIS. I have noticed you assume, rather than prove, the immortality of the soul. You appear to believe in man's inherent, indefeasible, natural immortality. Do the Scriptures anywhere teach this?

NEMO. It is stated, I see, that, granting the immortality of the soul, there is no escape from the doctrine of eternal punishment. The utmost

importance is thus being attached to the question you propose. Shall men live for ever in a state of happiness or misery? This is a tremendous question, this pondering the destiny of myriads of our fellow beings. It is one before which the boldest spirit quails. Is it true, that all we now see, and touch, and weigh, and measure, will ere long cease to be? that these heavens and this earth are mere accidents of man's being, that he does not derive importance from the planet on which he lives, but imparts to it dignity and interest, and that his spirit only is, among the things around us, abiding reality? This inquiry into the immortality of man, casts into the shade the greatest questions of earth, and commends itself by supreme and pressing claims. But I shall be obliged by your stating exactly the point, or aspect of the question, to which you refer.

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ALIQUIS. We are at one on the fact that a blessed futurity of being is secured by a living faith in the Redeemer, and that the regenerate among men will

never see death, but pass to a purer, higher, greater life. On the other hand, the obdurate and incorrigible seek death in the error of their way, and dying in impenitence find death, or destruction of being. Assuming that the soul is naturally mortal, and having no communion with the Redeemer, it ceases to be. So that the inquiry is simply this, is there proof of the soul's natural and inherent life after the wreck and waste of the body? My idea is that Christianity treats man, not as immortal, but rather as a candidate for immortality. The idea of an immortality inherent in man, is a pure figment of heathen philosophy, invented to relieve the awful gloom that always surrounds the grave, where life and immortality are not brought to light by the Gospel.

NEMO. I could not suppose that man is necessarily and independently immortal, and that God cannot terminate the soul's life. I could not dream that the creature is absolutely and unconditionally as enduring as the Creator, for this evidently would be a contradiction in terms. My creed is, that every human being possesses a percipient, rational, and voluntary spirit, additional to his body, that this immaterial soul or mind, was made and designed to be immortal, and that as far as we know there is nothing in the nature of the soul, or in the circumstances through which it may pass-such as bodily disease, or change, or death, that tends naturally to its extinction, but that much evidence on natural grounds may be adduced to shew that mind, or personality, never ceases to be. On the annihilation theory, which denies the Day of Judgment, man is believed to be extinguished at death; but others who hold this theory believe also in the Day of Judgment, and assume that the soul does live on for ages after the body has perished. There then is a capacity for an after life.

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believe it is true

that they who adopt the theory, "Life in Christ only," concede that man possesses a soul. They mean I suppose by the soul, an immaterial or spiritual entity or principle in him that thinks, reasons, remembers, and aspires; which discovers moral and spiritual affinities, and is in its essence. and powers radically distinct from his physical frame. You and I mean this; by a soul, we understand an immaterial and spiritual intelligence. Is this their account of it? If so, this soul possesses no physical, no dissoluble parts. It cannot be decomposed, since it is not composed. The body is naturally mortal, its constituents are in constant change and waste, and after awhile the vital force which sustains its functions is lost. The soul's essence is wholly different from this; its life being independent of physical changes and material sustenance, there is nothing in its constitution, that we can see, to arrest its onward consciousness. It may be by Divine power, annihilated or expunged, and this is the doctrine of the destructionist. Now I must affirm that the literal death of the soul, the termination or ceasing to be, of the thinking substance, which the Creator made with a capacity for immortality, cannot be proved by reason to have ever occurred, nor is it declared in Scripture. If you allow that man has an immaterial soul, its immortality seems to follow; but if you deny him the possession of an immaterial principle or mind, a strong indication or presumption of existence after death would still be found, on the ground of the law of continuance of being.

ALIQUIS. How can God create an immortal existence? The utmost we can understand on this matter is an intention to make man to make man immortal, otherwise you constitute the creature independent of his Creator.

NEMO. There you are assuming that I believe in the natural, indefeasible, inextinguishable immortality of man. But have I not just stated this is not my belief. Nor am I aware of any writer on the doctrine of future punishment that does so believe. Although invested with an immortal nature, man is still dependent upon God,-his very immortality being preserved by Him. Man's nature is specific, immortality being as much a property and determination of his nature as conscience, or volition, or accountability. But a created being, neither in this life nor in the life to come, will or can be, independent of its Maker. The question we have to consider is not what God can do, but what He has revealed as His will and purpose, which we may learn from His Inspired Word.

You tell me that the soul of a wicked and impenitent man is incorporeal and spiritual in its essence; now, it is for you to shew how in its simple unity it can cease to be. How from natural laws, or from any kind of knowledge, do you teach us to conclude that the soul of the unrighteous man must die as the body dies? Holy Scripture says it will be punished for ever, as the result of a life of rebellion against God. Admitting that the punishment is often called "death," and "destruction," in Scripture, we have learnt in our previous conversations that both these terms are applied to men while living. Spiritual death or destruction is something additional to natural death; as religious life is something supplemental to natural life, and as eternal life is something additional to mere immortality of existence.

ALIQUIS. But I must remind you that "immortal soul," and "immortal spirit," are phrases never found in Holy Writ. The word "spirit" (pneuma) frequently occurs in the Hebrew and Greek Scrip

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