I HAVE read your additional remarks on the “consciousness of the dead.” Your arguments were all founded on the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. I am not disposed to deny that in that parable the rich man, Lazarus, and Abraham are all made to speak like men in the flesh, and of such punishments as belong to the flesh, such as “I am tormented in this flame,” “send Lazarus to dip his finger in water and cool my tongue.” If this parable will prove “the consciousness of the dead,” before the resurrection, it will also prove as clearly that they have bodies, and that their bodies are punished in fire. I have heard men quote this parable to prove that men went directly to heaven or hell as soon as the breath left their bodies, or rather that their spirits went to heaven or hell then, and their bodies not till after the resurrection. You are aware, that parables are not acknowledged as good witnesses to prove every thing by me. If I can ascertain the design of the speaker who uttered the parable, then I admit it as proof of the position he was aiming to establish. But I do not feel bound to admit that all who have died, went directly to heaven or hell, before the resurrection or the judgment, merely because it is said the rich man was tormented, and the poor man was comforted. Suffice it to say that from what is said in the parable, we could not learn in what part of God’s creation “Hades” was situated, nor could we tell whether it was a whole world or only a part of one. We should be as likely to suppose that both heaven and hell were situated in it as any where else from the reading of the parable only. And we should certainly conclude that its inhabitants were really men, and not spirits, for there is not a hint that spirits were alluded to, or that they had been the topic of conversation.
[Primitive Christian, 1838.