To which I replied as follows:

Messrs Stobo and Co's^* Inherent Immortality.

Sir,—Mr Stobo seems to be offended at my statement, "that when foul sophistry failed our traditional theologians in their assertion to make the pagan fable of the immortal soul good, they had to lie, and have to do so to this day." What does Mr Stobo call this? Scripture says, "If you live after the flesh you shall die." But Augustine says," The soul of the wicked cannot die." The Bible says, "Broad is the way that leads to destruction." But Tertullian gays, "The soul of the wicked is lost, but not in the sense of destruction." Scripture [unclear: says,] shall be punished with eternal [unclear: dest] [unclear: tion]," J. Grant says, "The [unclear: ste] destruction of human life, at, [unclear: or] death, is a theological error of day." God says to Adam, "Dustt art, and unto dust thou [unclear: shalt] J. Wesley says, "Their bodios are corruptible. I am now [unclear: an] spirit." I could quote a thousand stances of the same purport. [unclear: And] appeal to the reader to judge [unclear: whe] the Bible tells these lies, or the [unclear: tr] tional theologians? It is within [unclear: re] tance that I have to analyze Stobo's theological jugglery, but as will not accept the teaching of; Bible as conclusive, I am forced to so. He adduces the following [unclear: te] by which he endeavors to [unclear: prop] Plato's fabled immortality of the [unclear: n] in a state of conscious [unclear: existence] death. 2nd Corinth, v. 8, he lays [unclear: do] his modus operandi how Paul is [unclear: to] with Christ, and then crams it is Paul's mouth. I ask him, does [unclear: P] anywhere express a desire to be Christ as a naked ghost? Does not in the 2—4 verse inform us: he groans and longs for his house the glorified immortal body is from heaven: and does [unclear: m] desire to be unclothed, i.e., become naked ghost-man of Mr Stobo's in the 6th he informs us again [unclear: that,] long as he is in his mortal [unclear: body] absent from the Lord." It is no wonder that Mr Stobo through Plato's spectacles cannot see, "What the house with the Lord" in the 8th verse [unclear: me] which with Paul meant the glorified body which he was to have from the Lord. And when Paul everywhere informs us, that it is at the [unclear: resurre] when he is also to receive crown of righteousness, and when mortal body shall be swallowed up immortality. And so in Phillip [unclear: 1, 2] page 9 Mr Stobo again tries hard to force Paul's naked ghost into his traditional heaven. But Mr Stobo's modus operandi, Paul does not accept, for he fully describes it in 1st. Corinth, xv. 50-54, and also in Collos. iii. 4, when I says, "When Christ, who is your life, is manifested, then shall you also with him be manifested in glory," and as to his being with Christ, he informs us in 1 Thessl. iv. 15-17, that it shall & be before "the coming of the Lord." Neither Jesus, Paul, John, nor James, ever made a promise to any believer that he would be with Christ as a naked ghost man apart from the body, before his coming. In Matt. x. 28, Jesus speaks of the souls (animal life) of those who believe in him, when he says, "that they cannot kill the soul," because their life is laid up, or hidden with God in Christ, who shall receive it again at the resurrection. But in case they do not believe in him, then he says, "that there is one (God) who is able to destroy both Body and soul in Gehenna" a metaphor signifying the lake of fire in Revelations. Mr Stobo again reads the parable of Dives and Lazarus trough Plato's spectacles, seeing that he makes of these men in their bodies disembodied ghosts, but not a word is said about such, for it represents them all as living men in their bodies. Now if this but proves anything at all in favor of disembodied ghosts who have a conscious existence after death, it goes to prove a great deal too much for Messrs Stobo and Co., viz., it proves that both body and soul live after death before the resurrection. But Jesus never meant to prove either the one or the other by it. He only meant prove by it what would be such a man's fate in the day of judgment, who had not done according to the law and the prophets. And it is for this reason that he had to antedate the judgment and connect it with men's actions during their lifetime, in order to work out the moral it conveys. Jesus in his parable did the same as Nathan in his parable to David about the poor man and his only pet sheep which, when it had wrought out the desired result upon David, who pronounced sentence on the man who did such a thing, Nathan then threw away the fictitious contents of the parable, and told David to his face, "thou art the man." The souls under the altar in Revel. vi. 9, signify dead bodies at the feet of the altar of sacrifice. Mr Stobo must be aware that in the Hebrew Old Testament souls in 10 different places signify dead bodies. Plato's spectacles have caused Mr Stobo to mistake again the question brought to Jesus for decision by the Sadducees, "shall man rise again and live?" to mean, do men's souls live after man is dead? No man reads, or can make it to mean, Do the souls of the dead live, but "shall the dead rise and live again?" And in this sense Jesus answers it, when he says, "But touching the dead, that they do rise have you not read," &c. As concerns all the disembodied spirits of Messrs Stobo and Co., (by "Co.," I mean, co-religionists,) I never found one word of such in the Bible. If they do exist somewhere else, surely they must be of his own manufacture. Mr Stobo certainly must have attained to a very high state of civilization above me and the Apostles, to possess a spirit capable when disembodied to be conscious after death.

John iii. 36—" He that believes on the Son has eternal life; and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him." Mr Stobo cannot understand "how a man can be said to have everlasting page 10 life, when until the resurrection he is dead, body and soul." Every believer in the promises of God understands it quite well, because the life God has pledged to him by his promise he receives back at the resurrection. This promise and pledge of God makes it as sure to him as if he possessed it already. Faith and hope are the hands by which he has and holds it. Had Mr Stobo such faith surely he would understand it. If Plato's immortal soul is possessed by all men alike, then "the believing in the Son" would cease to be a condition to obtain that life. And Mr Stobo's air-castle of inherent immortality falls to the ground. And will Mr Stobo inform me, why the unbeliever "shall not see," i.e. possess life? I will answer it for him in anticipation. Because the promised life is one only upon condition of faith in "the Son," and without it he remains under the sentence of death, "under the wrath of God." Yet Jesus does not add for ever, for the "wrath," the justice of God, is satisfied, when the unbeliever has suffered his due stripes in the lake of fire, and has succumbed under the power of the second death. Mr Stobo says, "Then Mr Richter has sufficiently demolished his own doctrine, for Hades in the New Testament never denotes the grave merely." With Messrs Stobo and Co. it may denote the unseen world, or place of disembodied spirits in a state of happiness or misery. But with me and the apostles it absolutely means, the grave, the abode of the dead body and soul. It is not much to Mr Stobo's credit to interpret Hades according to his foregone notions, then cram his definition of it into my mouth, and then triumphantly exclaim, "Mr Richter has (by my definition of Hades) demolished bis doctrine." I have yet to learn what right Mr Stobo has to cram his definition into my mouth. Mr [unclear: S] asserts on that great authority, I so, "That the soul of Jesus was dead in the grave," because he [unclear: sai] the thief on the cross, "[unclear: To-day] shalt be with me in Paradise." "Paradise," he proves on his [unclear: inf] authority, "We see this [unclear: was] department of that Hades, [unclear: in] the soul of the thief was with the of Jesus in a state of [unclear: con] happiness." Just the old [unclear: sophi] defence of all Platonians which all with a vengeance put into mouth of Jesus. For every man see if he has any eyes at [unclear: all] with, that neither Jesus nor the ever said a word about their souls spoke of themselves, the I, an thou, and concerning this I, [unclear: Jesus] most positively, that, like [unclear: Jon] the belly of the whale, he had [unclear: th] three days and three nights in heart (the grave) of the [unclear: earth.] after he had risen from the said to the women that "he [unclear: had] yet ascended up to his [unclear: father,"] into Mr Stobo's Paradise. The fact is, that Jesus never said [unclear: s] thing to the thief on the cross authorised version has put [unclear: in] mouth. What he said is "Verily, to-day I tell thee, that be with me in my Kingdom," [unclear: li] my Paradise, which are synonyms. All traditional theologians assets the soul is the real man, the [unclear: re] the body being with them only earth which at death the real [unclear: ma] soul, shakes off like an old [unclear: gam] And thus of necessity it must that the soul, the real man [unclear: of] was alive in Paradise, after the earth of his had died on the cross the real man Jesus had never [unclear: die] We ask Messrs Stobo and Co, [unclear: de] believe that the little earth that for them, can save them from page 11 agustinian eternal hell-fire? It so [unclear: ev] must indeed have a very elastic strong enough "to break the [unclear: ck] of all" the Christian doctrine maintained in the New Testament in [unclear: gard] to man's salvation from death by the death of Jesus. Mr Stobo [unclear: ems] to rely but little on the [unclear: strength] his scripture texts which he has brought forward in support of his [unclear: bby], the innate immortality of the [unclear: oul] If he had, he need not go a [unclear: going] and hunt up all the pagan Rons of it to prop up his hobby ft. The Paradise and immortality [unclear: of] the soul as held by the North American Indian hunters, just like his proceeding crotchets, go to prove again little much for his theory; for he must be aware that these Indians [unclear: not] believed that they had immortality themselves, but their dogs' ghosts also survived the shock of death and accompanied them on their paradizaical hunting ground, so that they could hunt with ghost dogs, ghost buffalos, [unclear: ghost], and ghost elks. And as Mr Stobo quotes these Indian fables in support of his theory, we are almost to conclude that Mr Stobo in his last Paradise will also ride his [unclear: ghost] when visiting sick ghost men, [unclear: and] to his congregation of [unclear: ghost] Mr Stobo classes my [unclear: theology] catalogue and identifies it [unclear: with] Christadelphian rubbish of infidels, [unclear: picureans] &c. His omniscience in as in every other case in this [unclear: versy], is wholly at fault, for I can K him that I have learned my [unclear: logy] from the Bible 25 years before ever knew there were anv Christa-[unclear: elphians]. The rest of Mr Stobo's traditional lucubrations I have to [unclear: leave] the present unnoticed. If, however, Spires another lesson or two on [unclear: ble] theology, he will please drop me note through the Times newspaper, and I will with great pleasure give him some more lessons gratis.