MUCH IN LITTLE | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Feb 7, 1878

"MUCH IN LITTLE."

BRIEF TESTIMONIALS ON MAN'S PRESENT CONDITION, THE INTERMEDIATE STATE, FUTURE PUNISHMENT, ETC., FROM REPUTABLE AUTHORS.

AN ORTHODOX TRANSLATION.

MR. KITTO, author of a very popular and valuable work, called the "Religious Encyclopedia," under the term "Adam," makes the following suggestive criticism. One might almost believe that he dissented from the common notion of man's innate immortality. Hear him: "And Jehovah God formed the man (Heb., the Adam) dust from the ground, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living animal Some of our readers may be surprised at our having translated neh-phesh chayiah by 'living animal.' There are good interpreters and preachers who, confiding in the common translation, 'living soul,' have maintained that here is intimated a distinctive pre-eminence above the inferior animals, as possessed of an immaterial and immortal spirit. But, however true that distinction is, and supported by abundant argument from both philosophy and the Scriptures, we should be acting unfaithfully if we were to assume its being contained or implied in this passage."

CRITICISM FROM PROF. BUSH.

Prof. Bush, in his "Notes on Genesis," thus comments on Gen. 2: 7:— "'Breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.' Heb., 'breath of lives;' intimating, as some have supposed, that man possesses the vegetative life of plants, the sensitive life of animals, and that higher rational life which distinguishes humanity. Still, it is not certain that this is the import of the plural in this word, nor is it possible to say with confidence what it is. As to the action here attributed to the Creator, we are not to suppose that any such process was actually peformed by him as breathing into the nostrils of the inanimate clay which he had molded into the human form. This is evidently spoken after the manner of men; and we are merely to understand by it a special act of Omnipotence imparting the power of breathing, or respiration to the animal fabric that he had formed, in consequence of which it became quickened and converted to a 'living soul,' that is, a living sentient creature. This act is indicated by the phrase 'breathed into his nostrils,' because the function of respiration is chiefly visible in this part of the human frame."

And he concludes on this passage with the following honest admission: "Indeed, it may be remarked that the Scriptures generally afford much less explicit evidence of the existence of a sentient, immaterial principle in man, capable of living and acting separate from the body, than is usually supposed."

ORIGIN OF THE POPULAR DOCTRINE.

Mr. Pantom Ham, of Bristol, England, in writing of the immortality of the soul, says: "Let it be registered as the genuine genealogy, that Pagan Plato was its father, and the profligate Pope Leo its foster-father. Born and bred by the Pagan philosophy, the protege of Popery, this notion of the soul's immortality has become a pet dogma of popular Protestantism, which, with a strange forgetfulness of its low lineage, openly declares it to be the honorable offspring of a true orthodoxy!"

HORRID TEACHING.

The American Tract Society published a tract, No. 277, by Rev. James Saurin, which says: "The wicked (in the fire of hell) utter as many blasphemies against God as the happy souls in Heaven shout hallelujah to his praise!" To such teaching we answer in the words of the prophet: "Wo to them that utter error against the Lord," "Wo unto them that put darkness for light," "Wo unto the blind guides." Give us the "mind of Spirit," if it tears every creed in Christendom to atoms.