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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 31

To this the Reverend Mr. Stobo of the Scotch Kirk, Tay Street, made the following reply:— — Mr Richter on the Immortality of the Soul

To this the Reverend Mr. Stobo of the Scotch Kirk, Tay Street, made the following reply:—

Mr Richter on the Immortality of the Soul.

Sir,—In an article in your issue of the 10th instant, I have been astonished to find that the Christian doctrine of the immortality of the soul is described as a pagan fable. Not only so, but those who defend it are charged with doing so, "upon no other principles than the foulest sophistry. And where this failed, then they had to lie, and have to do so to this day, asserting that certain texts of the Bible mean that white is black, and black is white."

Mr. Richter seems to think that there is no immortality even to the righteous, until the resurrection, and that soul and body alike perish in the grave, even as the brute does. He says, "Accordingly, death is an annihilation, a perishing of the conscious being called man, for the time being, page 5 until he has been raised again from death, and made alive." And again, if the greatest saint is under the sentence of death, and to immortality he can attain only by his faith, and that not till after the resurrection." Now whether or not we declare lies in preaching the immortality of the soul—and by immortality I mean a state of conscious existence, not destroyed by death—let the following passages of scripture declare.—The Apostle says in 2nd Corinthians, 5-8: "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be sent from the body and to be present with the Lord." The words here used, endemountes and ekdemoumen, cannot possibly mean anything else than such a presence with Christ as is got by a soul's leaving the body. Christ and the body are set opposite to each other, and leaving the one is going to the other. Again, the Apostle says: Phillip, i. 23, "For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ which is far better." Now this was a being with Christ, apart from the body, for in the next verse the Apostle contrasts it with a being in the body, when he says, ver. 24: "Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you."

Again, Matt. x. 28, we have the exhortation: "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." This passage would have no force on any view but that of the soul's immortality. See also, Luke xii. 4,5. In the 16th of Luke we have the rich man dead and buried, and yet in hell, and Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, and all this, long before there is any resurrection of their bodies, for the richman in hell is concerned for the welfare of his five brethren who are still living Revel. vi. 9: "John saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held." Heb. xii. 22-24, the Christian's fellowship is described as coming to "Mount Zion . . . to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect," &c.

In Matt. xxii. 32, the Lord confutes the Sadducees in their denial of the doctrine of the resurrection upon a principle which derives all its force from the continued life or conscious existence of believers, that is, of those in covenant with God, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." If, notwithstanding what our Lord here says, Abraham and Isaac, had been really dead, both body and soul for hundreds of years, when God spake these words to Moses, and were to remain so for thousands of years yet to come, it is really hard to see what should prevent the Sadducees from replying, that if " God could still continue the God of men dead body and soul for thousands of years, why should he not also, although they should remain equally dead for millions of ages?" When on this subject of the Sadducees I may remark that when Paul, Acts xxiii. 6, in a council composed of the two contending sects of Pharisees and Sadducees, cried out, "I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee," &c., it is no unfair inference, that he sought to be identified with the Pharisees in those characteristic doctrines which distinguished them from the Sadducees, and which are mentioned in the 8th verse, "For Use Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit; but the Pharisees confess both," It is difficult to know what page 6 is meant by spirit here, as distinguished from angel, and the resurrection, if it does not specially refer to disembodied spirits, seeing that the Sadducees did not deny the existence of God.

Besides these and similar passages, there is a large class of texts which seem necessarily to imply the same thing, viz., those which speak of eternal life as a present possession of the believer, or which conversely threaten eternal condemnation to the unbeliever. Take as a specimen John iii. 36, "He that believeth on the son bath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." How a man can be said to have everlasting life, when until the resurrection, or for some thousands of years, he is to be body and soul dead, I must confess I cannot understand. But enough of this, let us see what Scriptures Mr. Richter trusts to to establish his position. He says, referring to Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost, Acts, ii. 84, "Peter, full of the Holy Spirit, informs us that David had not yet ascended into heaven, but was still in his grave, and his soul in hades." If his body was in the grave, and his soul in hades, (that is the unseen world, or place of departed spirits, whether in a state of happiness or misery), then Mr. Richter has sufficiently demolished his own doctrine, for hades in the New Testament never denotes the grave merely. The truth is that the Apostle is quoting the 16th Psalm, and showing from it that David is speaking in it of the resurrection of Christ, and not of himself. Verse 31, "He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell (hades), neither his flesh did see corruption." Verse 34 shows that this was not true of David, for his body was still in the grave. Now I think that this passage clearly demonstrates the opposite doctrine from that of Mr. Richter. Why should Christ's soul be in hades, and not dead with the body in the grave, if death be at once the death of the body and the soul. That his soul was not dead in the grave, we know not only from the use of the word 'lades, but from the fact that he said to the thief on the cross, "To-day shall thou be with me in Paradise. "Paradise we thus see was one department of that hades, or unseen world, in which the soul of the thief was with the soul of the Saviour. It is quite clear that the soul of the thief was there in a state of conscious happiness, whilst his body was probably still hanging on the cross; and this one fact is enough to break the back of all the Christadelphian rubbish in the world. I don't think that Mr. Richter gains anything by his reference to Eccles. iii. 19, 20. "For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: As the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast; for all is vanity," &c. Now, I wonder why Mr. Richter, who accuses some other people of having to lie, &c., did not go on, and give us also the 21st verse of the same passage," Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth." Why did not he also give us from the same author, Eccles. xii. 7 "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." Surely a writer knows what he means, and does not say yea and no both in the compass of a few sentences. Had I quoted Eccles. xii. 7, "Then proof of the immor- page 7 tality of the soul, I should have felt bound to explain Eccles. iii. 19, which seems to run contrary to it; nor is the explanation difficult. In this book the wise man frequently speaks in the character of the mere Atheistical Epicurean, in order that in this lively half dramatic manner, he may the better both state and refute such a man's views of human nature and human duty. So is it here, after expressing the low view of human nature current in his day, and alas ! too cnrrent in ours, he adds in a somewhat melancholy strain, as if be had anticipated the ravings of modern infidels, Epicureans, and Christadelphians, verse 21, "Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward," &c.

With respect to the passage, 2nd Tim. vi. 16, "Who only hath immortality dwelling in the light," &c., it is clear that God alone hath immortality in the absolute sense, uncommunicated and incapable of being destroyed. He hath an immortality which no creature has, just as he has a holiness and goodness which no creature has, Matt. xix. 17, and this just because he alone is infinite and self-existent.

Mr. Richter thinks that we have derived our doctrine from Plato. It is Scriptural, that is enough, but if it is also the doctrine of Plato, few thinking men will have any objection to it on that account. The truth is that in some form or other it is found among almost all nations, civilised and savage, from the metempsychosis of the East, to the hunters' paradise of the North American Indian, and from Homer's Iliad 23, 103, down to our own day. It is surely probable on natural grounds that a belief so universal and inveterate has some foundation in fact. Mr. Richter speaks of the ordinary doctrine regarding bell in the following terms:—"For which Plato's Black Tartarus had to serve them, as a model. And the loving, merciful, and just God of the Bible had of necessity to be metamorphosed into a most cruel and unjust monster, such as the pagans could not even imagine." Now, sir, there is a hell, just as plainly as there a is a Bible, and its untold horrors and miseries, though described in language which is highly figurative, are yet as real as is the happiness of that heaven whose glories are also described in language that is figurative. We are told that their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched, see also Matt xxv. 46. I don't exactly gather from Mr. Richter what be would provide in his wisdom for this Gehenna, the hell of scripture. He speaks of the wicked being raised up at the resurrection, but he does not tell us what punishment they receive. As far as I understand Christadelphian doctrine, they are then to be annihilated, so that at death they lose conscious existence, and again receive it but for a short time in order to this annihilation. I don't speak of the contradiction to scripture here, but surely this is a most lame and impotent conclusion of the judgment. Why, sir, I believe in a God whose judgments are real, just because I believe in a God whose love is real. I believe in jails and hangmen, and the lash, and would think little of the love that did not provide them for criminals in such a world as this; I believe in the infinite love of God. I see his yearning heart in a redemption pressed upon the acceptance of a fallen world, but all the more can I see that that love is genuine, pure, and holy, when I see that it has provided a hell, in which its threatening against transgressors and rebels are to be executed. Mr. Richter and others like him might be better employed than in seeking to relax the bonds of eterns page 8 justice. There are many greedy ears ready to drink in tidings of the discovery that there is no hell, as there would be many ready to welcome the news that there is no jail. The question is, can they believe it? In conclusion, we would say to those who are busy propagating such views, and who come back to us almost breathless with delight, with the discovery which in these days of research they have made on the confines of the unseen world, that there is no hell; we would say to them what one in the audience once said to a Universalist preacher. Preaching at a place where a large congregation had come out to hear something new, he 'endeavored to convince his hearers that there is no punishment after death. At the close of his sermon, he informed the people that, if they wished, he would preach there again in four weeks, when a respectable merchant rose, and replied, "Sir, if your doctrine is true, we do not need you, and if it is false, we do not want you."

—Yours, &c.,

Andrew H. Stobo.