Eld. Cottrell's Fourth Reply.
By R. F. Cottrell
Dear Brother,—Your fourth article is received. I am glad to resume our correspondence. I, too, will aim at brevity in what I have to reply. I did not confound thought, emotion, &c., with their seat. I distinguished between them, and showed that there is no more difficulty in the view that immaterial thought is immediately connected with a material organization, than there is in the theory that it can be the product only of an immaterial soul, and still that immaterial soul itself is immediately connected with a material body. To get in an immaterial link between mind and matter, does not avoid the supposed difficulty; because that immaterial link must still be joined to the material body. We have in brutes the proof that mental operations result from living organized matter, unless they too have an immaterial soul to form the connection. To this argument you did not see fit to reply. You have given your "opinion," that animal life forever ceases with the death of the body—that it is "never to be returned" to man. If, by animal life, you mean a brutish manner of living, I should hope it might cease even before that event. I should fear that death would fail to purify from this. But if you mean simply life—that principle which belongs to all animated existence—your opinion is a denial of the resurrection. Our Saviour laid down his life, not his animal propensities, when he said, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit;" and he received it again. Said he, "I lay down my life, that I might take it again." And after he had risen, as the "first fruits of them that slept," he said, "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore." The resurrection consists in living again. Of those that had died in the Lord, we read that "they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished." Now, if this last class are raised free from "animal passions and emotions," or "animal propensities," as you say, how can they be tormented? and for what cause will their misery (if they are capable of it) be protracted to eternity? It would seem that, in such a state, they could not add anything to the debt already due for the "deeds done in the body." With pleasure I return to Matt. x, 28, not only because it is the only passage upon which you have made a fair show of argument for consciousness in death, but because I have not yet done with its testimony. I do not desire to spike your guns in this your strongest fort, for I have use for them. The view that I have given of the meaning of this passage would, I think, be satisfactory to all, were it not for the existence of a crumbling theory, which is in perishing need of a prop. I do not so much object to the translation of the passage, as to the unscriptural idea which is attached to the word soul—the idea that the soul lives when separated from the body—an idea that is not even hinted in any other passage in the Bible, and is not intended to be hinted in this. In the latter clause of this text—"But rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell"—the word destroy evidently means no less than the word kill in the first clause. But this would destroy your theory; therefore you will not admit that destroy means to kill. I could hold my ground on this, however, unless you could find some theological definition of the term—a definition invented to sustain your theory; but, to avoid a windy strife about words, I retreat, and take position upon the first clause: "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul." You will not dispute that, in this clause, kill means kill. I proceed then. 1. We are not to fear those who are not able to kill the soul. 2. But we are expressly taught to fear God. 3. Therefore God is able to kill the soul. Will he do it? Let us see. 1. Our Saviour used no false motive. 2. But he did present God's ability to kill the soul as a powerful motive. 3. Therefore God will kill the souls of some, i. e. the souls of the wicked. Now, that which is liable to be killed, or, in other words, subject to death, is not immortal, but mortal; therefore the soul of man is mortal. Now, brother, if there is any leak in this logic, will you be so kind as to point out the very place where it is. If you do not find any real fault in the argument, I shall still think this "text is so pointed, that except subjected to the most merciless torture and violent wrestling, it forever settles the question," that the soul of man is mortal. The Bible "is silent concerning the immortality of the soul" in its present state, or until it shall put on immortality at the resurrection of the just. But you claim that though "the term immortality is not in the Scriptures applied to the soul, that the idea is abundantly found there." You claim "that the Bible, especially the New Testament, would be without meaning, were we to remove this doctrine from it." I reply, Words are used in the Bible as signs of ideas; if the idea is abundantly there, you can point out the word or words which express it. I ask you to do so. I do not ask for any particular word, as immortal, but for any word which expresses the idea. If I desired to "remove this doctrine" from the Bible, as perhaps you think I do, what words should I be obliged to expunge? If the "continued existence of the soul after the death of the body" were proved, it would no more prove its immortality, than for a person in this life to say, "I live to-day, therefore I shall live forever." The wicked will have a future life; but is this affirmation a denial of the truth that that life will terminate with the second death? Greenfield defines the words rendered incorruptible and corruptible, in Rom. i, 23, as follows: Aphthartou, incorruptible, immortal, imperishable, undying, enduring. Phthartou, corruptible, perishable, liable to decay, mortal. And he refers to Rom. i, 23; 1 Cor. ix, 25; and xv, 52. With this evidence before you, can you believe that the text designs to speak of God as sinless, and of man as sinful? Is it not clear, that it speaks of God as immortal, and of man as mortal? I had no thought of misleading the people, or concealing the truth, when I gave Webster's fifth definition only, of the word destroy. I wish to avoid long quotations; but your insinuation of my attempting to deceive, by withholding an important part of the truth, together with the fact that few comparatively have Webster Unabridged, compels me to give those nine definitions entire. They are as follows: 1. To demolish; to pull down; to separate the parts of an edifice, the union of which is necessary to constitute the thing; as, to destroy a house or temple; to destroy a fortification. 2. To ruin; to annihilate a thing by demolishing or by burning; as, to destroy a city. 3. To ruin; to bring to naught; to annihilate; as, to destroy a theory or scheme; to destroy a government; to destroy influence. 4. To lay waste; to make desolate.
Go up against this land, and destroy it.—Isa. xxxvi. 5. To kill; to slay, to extirpate; applied to men or other animals.
Ye shall destroy all this people.—Num. xxxii.
All the wicked will he destroy.—Psa. cxiv. 6. To take away; to cause to cease; to put an end to; as, pain destroys happiness.
That the body of sin might be destroyed.—Rom. vi. 7. To kill; to eat; to devour; to consume. Birds destroy insects. Hawks destroy chickens. 8. In general, to put an end to; to annihilate a thing, or the form in which it exists. An army is destroyed by slaughter, capture or dispersion; a forest, by the ax, or by fire; towns, by fire, inundation, &c. 9. In chemistry, to resolve a body into its parts or elements. Here, my friend, are the nine definitions. Which will you have? Which will you take to prove that, to destroy both soul and body means to preserve them eternally? The discerning reader will see, that the reason why I selected the fifth definition, is because it touches the subject in debate; it is the meaning of the word when "applied to men." You ask me whether destroy means to kill in the Scriptures you quote: "Destroy not with thy food him for whom Christ died," &c. It does in a secondary, but in no mystical sense. If we cause a brother to fall, we cause him to be destroyed; for that will be his final punishment. In this sense we kill him. I see no occasion for saying more concerning the inward man. I refer the reader to what has been already said. To test the strength of your argument by which you attempt to set aside the force of the testimony which I quoted to sustain my first proposition, perhaps I can do no better than to try its force upon a horse, or some other of the inferior animals. Do not think I am disposed to trifle; I am engaged in sober argument, upon a solemn and momentous subject, and I would disdain to descend to ridicule. I am laboring not to deprive men of immortal souls, but to convince them that they are in need of immortality, and to induce them to seek for it by well doing. Rom. ii, 7. If it is thus attainable, as the Scriptures assure us it is, it is worth just as much as though we already possessed it. But I proceed to try the force of your argument. All animals that breathe have, according to Bible teaching, the breath of life, and are living souls. Up to the time that God gave life to the horse, it could be nothing more than organized dust, and not living matter. God adds to this horse of dust life; and this life is not dust. In the death of the horse, God takes away the life which he added to the dust. "He taketh away their breath; they die, and return to their dust." Psa. civ, 29. To say that the horse in death returns to dust, including the added essence, is a palpable error. Neither the breath of life, nor life itself, is included in that which returns to dust, in man or beast. Now, brother, all that is wanting on your part, is to prove, not that life was given to man, but that an immortal soul was communicated to him. Concerning my proposition that man is mortal, you ask, "Who disputes it." I reply, every one disputes it that says that the all-important part of man is immortal. I see no argument here which demands any reply that has not already been given. I have no need of a text to prove that that which God breathed into man is mortal, until you prove that it was something besides the breath of life—something not named in the record. How inconsistent to hold that, in the account of man's creation, given by inspiration of God, infinitely the most important part is not mentioned at all! It is extremely difficult to evade the testimony that the dead know not anything. You ask, "Who asserts that dead men have knowledge?" Every one who asserts that man has an immortal soul, asserts, either that dead men have knowledge, or, that there are no dead men. The Scriptures speak of man in a state called death. You assume that that state is merely91a separation of the conscious soul from the unconscious body. According to this theory, knowledge is not diminished, but actually increased by death; for the soul now knows, in addition to its former knowledge, what death is, or what it is to be separated from the body. But the Holy Spirit has condescended to inform us, that in the state called death, "there is no remembrance" even of God—that "the living know" some things, "but the dead know not anything." But you ask whether these Scriptures were "written to meet the question we are debating." I presume they were not written for the express occasion of our debate; but they speak decidedly to the question under discussion. This is the reason I quote them. Matt. x, 28, was not written expressly to meet this question, but as an exhortation to faithfulness even to death. It does not speak to the question of man's knowledge in death, but merely represents that man cannot kill the soul, which, as I have shown, is to deprive them of their existence in the world to come. The texts I have quoted affirm positively, that in death there is no knowledge—no remembrance. It is not for me to show "that the spirits of the departed know nothing," till you show that the spirit of man is an entity, or being, separate from the body. Was the breath of life a conscious being added to man, or was it given simply to make man alive? It is the Saviour that talks about men in the graves. He says, "The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth." It is not for the want of language to express the idea, that the immortality of the soul is not affirmed in the Scriptures. We are taught that God is immortal. "Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God," &c.—1 Tim. i, 17. This is the only place where the word immortal is found in our common English version. No word having the meaning of immortal is anywhere applied to the human soul. The word immortality is used five times. Speaking of God it is said, "Who only hath immortality."—1 Tim. vi, 16. God is the only fountain of immortality. But there is a future immortality for man brought to light or revealed in the gospel. Speaking of Christ, it is said, "Who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."—2 Tim. i, 10. This immortality is presented as an object of hope—a thing to be sought for. God "will render to every man according to his deeds; to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory, and honor, and immortality, eternal life."—Rom. ii, 6, 7. Those who seek for it, are not in possession of it; but will receive it at the resurrection. "For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory."—1 Cor. xv, 52-54. Such is the Bible teaching on the immortality of the soul. God has immortality, and can impart it to whom he will. His willingness to impart, even to those who had lost their life through disobedience, is brought to light through the gospel; not through the New Testament only, but through the whole gospel scheme, from the first promise concerning the seed of the woman, down to the last dispensation. Christ has demonstrated the abolition of death to those who receive him, by his own death and triumphant resurrection. Those who seek for immortality, by patient continuance in well doing will obtain it. It will be given at the resurrection of the just—the first resurrection. Then the glorious victory over death and the grave will be consummated, and the saying that "is written" be a glorious reality. Then this mortal person or soul will put on immortality. Let all who would enjoy immortality, accept of it through Christ. Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory over death and the grave, through our Lord Jesus Christ! As ever yours,
R. F. COTTRELL.