In the Warren (Ills.) Independent of Feb. 18th, a series of articles was commenced from the pen of Wm. Keegan, in which he professed to substantiate the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Knowing that the said Keegan had once attempted a discussion of this subject with Bro. Cornell, from which for some reason however he desisted, I was somewhat anxious to see what he had to present to the public to convince them that he did not cease to pursue the discussion for want of argument. On reading his first article I found that a work of one J. N. Loughborough was to be overthrown firstly to prove the immortality of the soul. Anxiety was still greater then, to see what was going to be the course in the rest of the articles. Presently a second article came, and after reading this I commenced a review of some positions taken, and then received a third and fourth number of his articles. In all these he ventures to present no scripture proof that the soul is immortal.
While waiting anxiously for another article, thinking perhaps he might begin to present some of his evidences for the immortality of the soul, the following came to hand:
For the Warren Independent.
MR. EDITOR: I received your polite note informing me, that as some of your subscribers are determined to withdraw their support from the 'Independent,' if the publication of my articles on the 'Immortality of the Soul' should be continued; that it would be necessary to discontinue them. I would be very sorry indeed, if you should lose any of your subscribers in consequence of any act of mine, and with thanks for the cheerfulness with which you accepted of, and published those already before the public, I shall not prepare anything further on that subject for your enterprising little sheet. I can, however, more than guess the reason why they are objectionable. If a person foolishly sets his affections on a deformed object, there would be nothing more afflictive than to bring its deformities to light. Error hates the light, and like the bird of night loves to hoot in the dark—the history of the past demonstrates this fact, and
hence when the arguments in these articles could not be answered, the only resort is to throttle investigation.
With many thanks I am
Yours respectfully,
Wm. Keegan.
After reading the above note, the thought came to my mind that a man who had twice disappointed the public, by promising them proof of the immortality of the soul, and failing to produce the said proof, was the wrong man to talk about "birds of night" "hooting in the dark," unless he meant it to apply to himself.
How did Eld. K. ascertain that his arguments were unanswerable? Does he mean the arguments he has not presented? Certainly there is but very little argument in what he has presented, that bears as proof that the soul is immortal; but his great aim is to show that one L. is wrong in his arguments on the opposite side. Now if he could show that our reasonings were false, it would present no proof of the immortality of the soul.
But we will pass to notice those points which are of account in his articles. In introducing his reasoning for the immortality of the soul, he says, the doctrine "has been rejected and inveighed against by individuals and sects of nearly all ages of the world's history." "The opinions, however, of those who have rejected this truth, have always been various, conflicting and self-contradictory." Here is his broad statement and not a testimony offered to prove it. Who were those whose views were so self-contradictory? We admit his statement, that the doctrine of the soul's immortality "has been rejected by individuals and sects in all ages of the world," and these individuals, some of them at least, rank high in the eulogies pronounced upon them at the present day. Among them stand Martin Luther and John Milton, author of Paradise Lost, Wm. Tyndale, and a host of others.
MARTIN LUTHER in his Defence, prop. 27, published 1520 said: "I permit the pope to make articles of faith for himself and his faithful, such as that he is emperor of the world, God upon earth, that the soul is immortal, with all those monstrous opinions to be found only in the Roman dunghill of decretals."
AUDLIN'S Life of Luther speaks of a company who "left Wittenberg and went to Geneva, where we find them in 1561 sustaining a crowded school, and imprinting in theses, that all which had been said about the immortality of the soul, was invented by anti-christ for the purpose of making the Pope's pot boil."
And as to the opinion of John Milton, we would refer the reader to his writings on the state of the dead as they are given in his Work called Treatise on Christian Doctrine. We shall introduce some of his testimony in this review; in which he contends that the whole man dies, soul and body, and awaits the resurrection for his reward. And this he endeavors to faithfully maintain by scriptural arguments.
We also learn quite an important fact concerning this doctrine from p. 444 of Neander's Church History. After speaking of a sect of Christians in Arabia who "maintained that the soul died with the body," he says: "Perhaps also in this district, the position of which placed it in close connection with Jews, it was no new doctrine, but the predominant one from ancient times; and perhaps the influence of Origen (in whose system the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul necessarily obtained a place,) first effected the change that this latter should obtain universal acceptance among the Church-teachers of that district; and that the small party, which still maintained the old opinion, should appear heretical, although the predominant opinion had previously pronounced itself against it, the new opinion." But this must suffice on this point, although we might multiply testimonies upon it.
Again Eld. K. says:
"The opinion of those who believe in the immortality of the soul, is, that volition, consciousness, perception, thought, affection and moral sensibility, imply corresponding powers; namely, a power that is self-acting, conscious, perceiving, understanding, feeling, and a conscience; that those powers inhere in a substance, existence, or being; and that those properties are inseparable from each other, and from the substance to which they belong, or in which they inhere. That consequently this substance is indivisible—is not material—does not depend upon matter for its existence; that it will exist after the body is dead, and for ever."
Eld. K. says, Those who believe in the immortality of the soul have implied that thought, &c., are produced by some substance which exists independent of matter. There is no necessity for such an inference. If, as Eld. K. admits, the immortality of the soul is not expressly revealed, (he says the phrase immortal soul, &c., are not used in the Bible,) then we have just as much right to infer from isolated testimony as he, and even more so, for the opposite to his doctrine is stated, namely, "The dead know not anything." We claim that there is no reasonable ground to infer that because we think, the principle that thinks must always think, and the celebrated Mr. Locke, thought the same. He says, "To say that actual thinking is essential to the soul, and inseparable from it, is to beg what is in question, and not to prove it by reason, which is necessary to be done if it is not a self-evident proposition." "Whether that substance (referring to the soul,) perpetually thinks or no, we can be no further assured than experience informs us. The idea of duration arises from a succession of ideas, and, by that succession, duration is measured in our minds. When that succession of ideas ceases, our perception of duration ceases with it, which every one clearly experiments in himself, whilst he sleeps soundly, whether, an hour, or a day, or a month, whilst he sleeps, he has no perception at all, but it is quite lost to him, and the moment wherein he leaves off to think, till the moment he begins to think again* seems to him to have no distance." Locke's Essays, Book II, Chap. i, Sec. 10, & Chap. xiv, Sec. 4.
Eld. K. says:
"The Bible furnishes us with evidence, and to a degree that is overwhelmingly convincing, that the soul consciously exists after the death of the body." Hence he claims that "it does not depend upon matter for its existence, and that which thus exists, will exist for ever."
Surely if such overwhelming testimony exists, the Elder might have given us as much as one text in each of his articles that taught it, or even in that little note to the Editor of the Independent, there might have been two or three of these overwhelming texts. But John Milton, who had looked into the matter perhaps as deeply as Eld. K. says: "That the spirit of man should be separated from170the body, so as to have a perfect and intelligent existence independent of it, is nowhere said in Scripture, and the doctrine is evidently at variance both with nature and reason."
It has been inferred from certain testimonies and circumstances that "the soul consciously exists after the death of the body." These testimonies and circumstances can all be explained in a consistent manner, and harmonizing with the general tenor of Scripture, without claiming Eld. K's. position. His inferences are therefore unnecessary; and it is an established principle in reasoning that an unnecessary inference is without foundation, and, therefore, inadmissible.
Adam Clarke remarks on Matt. v, 26, "Let it be remembered, that by the general consent of all, except the basely interested, no metaphor is ever to be produced in proof of a doctrine. In the things that concern our eternal salvation, we need the most pointed and express evidence on which to establish the faith of our souls."
Facts are also against the position that thought, volition, &c., are independent of matter. If thought is independent of matter, how is it that the mind is affected and even reduced to unconsciousness by disease of the body? We might quote numberless instances here to show that individuals by injury of the skull, and its depression on the brain, have been for a time, some for many days, unconscious. We will quote the following remarkable circumstance which lately appeared in print, which shows that the mind is dependent on the body:
"Nineteen years ago, Mr. Hait of Wilton, Fairfield County, Connecticut, then a remarkably good student in his collegiate course, was suddenly deprived of his reason and memory. Under these circumstances, his father, the Rev. Mr. Hait, sent him to Hartford, but finding no relief, he sent him to Mr. Chaplin of Cambridge, Mass. The Doctor said there was no present relief for him, but at the age of thirty-six or thirty-seven there would be a change; that the brain was too much expanded for the cranium, and there would be at that age a contraction which would enable it to act healthily. His anxious father and family saw their hopes peremptorily deferred for nineteen years. That time has recently expired, and to their great joy, the prophecy is fulfilled. The man began to inquire for his books as if he had just laid them down, and resumed his mathematical studies where he left them. There was no trace in his mind of this long blank in his life, or of anything that had occurred in it, and he did not know that he was nearly forty years old."
Query: If thought is produced by a substance that is immaterial, and this substance exists independent of matter, how could it be possible that it should be affected by bodily disease? We have concluded, if disease of the body will make a man unconscious when he is alive, that it is folly to talk of his being conscious after he is dead. The Scripture nowhere states it, but on the contrary says, "The dead know not anything." Eccl. ix, 5. "His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." Ps. cxlvi, 4.
If we rightly understand Eld. K. he claims that volition, thought, affection, &c., imply that there is a self-existing substance, wherever these are manifest, that possesses power to think, love, will, &c. It is an established fact, and one that it would be in vain to deny, that beasts think, love, and will. In the Ladies' Repository of March 1857, is an article in which the writer not only claims that beasts think and manifest affection, but he furnishes evidence to show that they reason. Our space will admit us to refer to only one of the many circumstances which are quoted by this writer in proof of his position that beasts can reason. It is as follows:
"The battering-train going to the siege of Seringapatam, had to cross the sandy bed of a river that resembled other rivers of the peninsula, which bears, during the dry season, but a small stream of water running through them, though their beds are mostly of considerable breadth, very heavy for draught, and abounding in quick-sands. It happened that an artillery-man, who was seated on the tumbril of one of the guns, by some accident fell off, in such a situation that in a second or two the hind wheel must have gone over him. The elephant which was stationed behind the gun, perceiving the predicament in which the man was, instantly, without any warning from his keeper, lifted up the wheel with his trunk, and kept it suspended till the carriage had passed clear over him."—Twelve Years' Military Adventure.
Eld. K. says, The existence of these functions "imply corresponding powers; namely, a power that is self-acting, &c." If his reasoning on this point is correct, has he not established a self-existing spirit in beasts? If his statement be true that this substance, which he thinks is indivisible, is not material, does not depend upon matter for its existence, has he not as virtually established the immortality of mind in beast as in man? But we claim that he has done neither. How does Eld. K. know that matter cannot be organized by an all-wise Creator, so as to manifest all the functions of the human body? In the vegetable world we behold organizations of grosser matter, and in these are functions not unlike some of those of the human body. The sap, like the blood in the human body, conveys the nourishment for the plant through all the various ramifications of its system.
Leaving this philosophy, and turning to that part of Revelation from whence we should expect to learn concerning such an immortal part in man, if he possessed it, namely, to the account of creation, we learn that "the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground." To impart life, he "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." The result was, "Man became a living soul." From this account we learn that it was "the breath of life," which imparted activity to the man, and caused him to become a "living soul." But this breath of life in man is the same that is breathed by beasts, in the account of the flood, [Gen. vii, 22,] we read: "All flesh died . . . both of fowls, and of cattle, . . . all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died." And in Eccl. iii, 19, we read of man and beast: "Yea they have all one breath." And in Ps. civ., David, after speaking of man and beast, says: "Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust." Thus showing that the breath is the life-principle which is imparted to them.
Where shall we learn that any immaterial part has ever been given to man? There is certainly no text in the Scriptures that states it, and this account of creation shows that the combined substances of man are "dust of the ground," and "breath." But we learn from Eld. K. something concerning Gen. i, 27, which no individual could ever have learned by reading the text, namely, that "the human soul is a created essence." He says, "God is a spirit. There can be no resemblance between gross matter, such as composes the human body, and pure spirit; it must then have been the soul that was in the image of God." But this statement has its origin in the assumption that whatever is spirit, must be immaterial and has no form. Paul states, Heb. i, 7, "Who maketh his angels spirits," but when angels appeared to Abraham he supposed them to be men. We read concerning Christ in Heb. i, 31, "Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person," &c. From this we should understand that although "God is a Spirit," he has a form. But Paul tells us plainly in Phil. ii, 5, "Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God." Here is plain testimony that God has a form, and this is plainly implied in Gen. i, 26, 27. "God created man in his own image." Gen. ii, 7, "The Lord formed man of the dust." Here is truth plainly stated, that man made of dust was in the image of God. But Eld. K. sees no way to maintain his position but to deny this.
Eld. K. virtually admits that there is no positive proof that the soul is immortal in his testimony concerning the phrase immortal soul. He says, "The absence of a peculiar phraseology can be no proof against any truth." He claims no express testimony that the soul is immortal, but stakes the whole question on his supposed proof that the soul consciously exists after the death of the body. We here venture the assertion that he cannot find one text of Scripture which states that "the soul consciously exists after the death of the body," and if he could, it would fail to prove that the soul was immortal. He who created, can destroy, and until it ceases to be a fact that "in him we live, and move, and have our being," the continuance of the existence of all parts of man must depend entirely upon God's will. So the reader may see at once by Eld. K.'s own reasoning that positive proof for the soul's immortality will not be forthcoming. The matter will come out as stated by Bishop Tillotson in his Sermons, published 1774. "The immortality of the soul has rather been supposed, or taken for granted, than expressly revealed in the Bible."
We now ask, what does the absence of a peculiar phraseology prove on this subject? Of itself, as Eld. K. says, it would "prove nothing against any truth." But if the soul's immortality is not taught in the Bible, and the opposite is taught, then the fact of the absence of this peculiar phraseology is entitled to some weight. If his inferences from certain texts can be made to invalidate the testimony of David in Ps. cxvi, 4, when he states of man "His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish," or in Ps. vi, 5, where he states that "in death there is no remembrance of God," or the testimony of Solomon, [Eccl. ix, 5,] "For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not anything," and other such testimonies; then he might claim that the absence of the phrase immortal soul is no proof against the doctrine of the immortality of the soul.
Eld. K. either misunderstands, or misrepresents our position on the word, immortality. We presented in our work the few instances where this word occurs in the Scriptures, and not one of them intimates that man is in possession of immortality; but that it is something that is to be sought for, and put on at the resurrection of the just. Eld. K. goes on with nearly a column concerning what we said on the text, "Who only hath immortality," but there stands the text, and still states the same thing, notwithstanding all his efforts to prove that immortality is established in man. The substance of our claim on the text is, God is the fountain of immortality, all beings who ever have become immortal have received it from him; all that are to be made immortal, will be made so by him. But the Eld.'s attempted disposal of this text does not dispose of it, neither does it remove our claim that all immortality is derived from God. If his position is correct that all are in possession of immortality, a matter for serious reflection is, Where did they get it? If you say the child receives it by generation from the parent, then you establish a second fountain of immortality, and thus do violence to the text above. But Eld. K. has thrown himself out on this position by his testimony that the soul "is indivisible." But there is but one position left for him which is more absurd, namely, that the soul comes direct from God. On this point we will quote from John Milton.
"Whosoever is born, or shapen and conceived in sin, as we all are, not David only, [Ps. li, 5,] if he receive his soul immediately from God, cannot but receive it from him shapen in sin; for to be generated and conceived, means nothing else than to receive a soul in conjunction with the body. If we receive the soul immediately from God, it must be pure, for who in such a case will venture to call it impure? But if it be pure, how are we conceived in sin in consequence of receiving a pure soul, which would rather have the effect of cleansing the impurities of the body; or with what justice is the pure soul charged with the sins of the body?" "God would in fact have left his creation imperfect, and a vast, not to say a servile task, would yet remain to be performed, without even allowing time for rest on each successive Sabbath, if he still continued to create as many souls daily as there are bodies multiplied throughout the whole world, at the bidding of what is not seldom the flagitious wantonness of man."—State of the Dead, Chap. I.
On the text, "Who hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel," we claimed and still claim, that all that the171gospel teaches respecting immortality is, that it is to be sought for, and obtained at the resurrection. See Paul's declaration of the gospel, 1 Cor. xv. Where can Eld. K. find a text in all the gospel teachings that represents man in his present state as in possession of immortality? Nowhere. We could hardly suppress a smile as we read Eld. K.'s disposition of Rom. ii, 7. He seems to think he has found a solution for this matter in the word seek. He says, 'One of the definitions Webster gives it, is as follows: 'Seek: to make search or inquiry; to endeavor to make discovery.'' But, Mr. K. when you were writing that page, did you forget that verses 6 and 7 were both in the same chapter? Verse 6, introduces this matter, showing that God 'will render to every man according to his deeds; to them who by a patient (study of philosophical arguments and scripture inferences(?) No) continuance in well-doing, seek for glory, and honor, and immortality; eternal life.' If we rightly read this text, this seeking for immortality is a work of obedience to God; the reward of which will be eternal life.
The most common sense definition of eternal life is, eternal conscious existence. Eld. K. says, it means 'the love of God in us.' This departing from the most obvious meaning of the Scripture, for the sake of substituting a far-fetched one, is the very point we meant to strike against in our work, when we claimed that popular theology denied the literal character of the Bible. Eld. K. in introducing his second article attempts to clear himself on this point. He says, 'In order to show at once the falsity of this assumption, it is only necessary to make a quotation from one of our most popular and generally received authorities.' He quotes quite a lengthy extract from Richard Watson's Theological Institutes, Part i, Chap. 11, the substance of which is that Bible terms 'are to be taken in their plain and commonly received sense.' We never claimed that the believers in the immortality of the soul professed to teach the Bible as a mystical, and not a literal book; but it is their actual course in this matter that we have to do with. Now to show that Eld. K. is following directly on the very track his quotation condemns, I refer to his complex definitions of eternal life and death. He represents that eternal life is the 'love of God in us,' and quotes texts to prove that Christians have eternal life here. His most important text on this point is 1 John v, 12. 'He that hath the Son, hath life, and he that hath not the Son, hath not life.' His position is that when we believe, we have eternal life in us, 'the love of God in our hearts.' But verse 11 states, 'And this is the record that God hath given to us, eternal life; and this life is in his Son.' This being the case, how can he claim that it is in us? It can only be on the ground that it is said that the believer 'hath life,' but then he only has it by promise, 'Your life is hid with Christ in God.' 'When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.' Col. iii, 2, 3.
A very formidable objection to our friend's view of this eternal life, is, eternal life is represented in the Scriptures as a reward of obedience. 'If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.' 1 John ii, 24, 25. But if eternal life is the love of God in us, it is a natural consequence of obedience and not a reward. Paul's charge which he commanded Timothy to give the rich, was to do good works, thus 'laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.' 1 Tim. vi, 18, 19.
Eld. K. says, 'The question may be asked, if the possession of God's Spirit in this life, be what is meant in the Bible when eternal life is spoken of, and if all true Christians now possess it, how can it still be an object of hope?' Here is truly quite an important question, and one he does not find it easy to answer without admitting our position. The first reason assigned why it is an object of hope is, 'because it may be withdrawn from them in consequence of sin.' But if we rightly understand Rom. viii, 24, 25, the Elder has failed himself with his reasoning on eternal life; 'But hope that is seen, is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.' Then when a man is hoping for eternal life, he is waiting for it. But in giving his second answer he, perhaps unwittingly, claims our position and puts eternal life in the future. He says, 'The confirmation of this, in another life, when there is no death, no sin, &c., . . . will constitute the full measure of all our hopes of glory.' Then eternal life is something besides the love of God in us, for, according to his own showing, the person who is hoping for eternal life is in hope of the future life.
The next point which claims our attention in these articles is Eld. K.'s position on the term death. He quotes our remark that death could not mean what Webster defines it: (Die: To cease to live; to expire; to decease; to perish;) or else the soul is not immortal, and says: 'Death means what Webster defines it to be, and the soul that sinneth it shall die, and notwithstanding the soul is immortal.' Well if death means what Webster defines it to be, then the soul that sinneth, it shall cease to live.
Next our reviewer introduces a lengthy extract from Drew on the term death. The substance of this quotation is, that death is the opposite of, or the deprivation of, life. From this definition the Elder goes on to spiritualize death. He quotes several texts which he supposes teach that the life of the soul consists in its being brought under the influence of the Spirit of God; therefore he claims that the death of the soul is its being deprived of the Spirit of God. But because he has found instances where the person is said to die, when they cease to live holy lives, he has concluded that 'the soul existing without that which alone can inspire it with true spiritual animation, is properly regarded as being in a state of death.'
We do not deny but some of these passages speak of a death which is the opposite of a holy life, but Paul just as explicitly says, 'I die daily,' when he wished to convey the idea that sin in his members was constantly crucified. So if Eld. K. wishes to establish the meaning of the word death by those passages in which the word is used in a secondary sense, then he will find that Paul recognizes a man as dead to sin, as well as dead in trespasses and sins. So that a person in either a state of sin or holiness is dead to the opposite condition. 'How can ye who are dead to sin, live any longer therein?' From this we learn that they were called alive when they were in a state of sin.
'The soul that sinneth, it shall die.' It seems that the object of Eld. K.'s labored argument on the term death is to show that when the term is used as in the text above, it simply means, if a righteous man sins, he will become a sinner, and so his reasoning could apply only to the righteous who might perchance transgress. As a matter of course before the soul can die it must be alive; but according to his definition of death when applied to the soul it cannot die until it is first holy, for he represents that to die is to fall from that holy state. To die, must be a going into a state of death. But those who never knew God (according to his theory) were always dead. How can a being die a spiritual death who is already spiritually dead? Therefore those who were never the recipients of God's grace could never die.
But we will now take a view of his definition of death from another quarter. It seems to us, if we have learned to read the Bible aright, that is to judge of the proper bearing of a text by its context, that Ezekiel is speaking in the text, 'It shall die,' of the punishment of the sinner. I had ever supposed that the punishment of the sinner was to be a direct execution of the vengeance of God upon them; but it seems from Eld. K.'s reasoning that the punishment of the sinner is a natural result consequent upon his acts. The soul sins. Result. He is a sinner. But his sinning constitutes him a sinner, so his being a sinner cannot be the penalty for his sins. Our reviewer reasons as though the text said, the soul that sinneth, its righteousness shall die—cease to live. But there the text stands, 'the soul that sinneth, it shall die.' And as Eld. K. has concluded to admit Webster's definition of death, we meet in this conclusion: 'The soul that sinneth it shall cease to live.'
Eld. K. represents that in order to maintain our position we are 'compelled to deny the immortality of angels.' Those who have been so fortunate as to see the argument in the said pamphlet on this point know our conclusion, that those angels who kept their first estate are immortal, but that they derived their immortality from God.