Facts for the Times

ADVANTAGES OF REVELATION

DARBY in his “Hopes of the Church,” says: FT 104.1

“We would express our conviction, that the idea of the immortality of the soul has no source in the gospel; that it comes, on the contrary, from the Platonist, and that it was just when the coming of Christ was denied in the church, or at least began to be lost sight of, that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul came in to replace that of the resurrection. This was about the time of Origen.” FT 104.2

The following is from the Comprehensive Commentary. Note on Joshua 8:29. FT 104.3

“The Talmudist say—The reason bodies were to be buried immediately was, lest the view of the carcass, should lead the common people into the idea that the soul was also dead; and thus weaken the opinion, which needed a revelation from god to make it believed, that the soul is immortal.” FT 104.4

Martin Luther says: FT 104.5

“But I permit the pope to make articles of faith for himself and his faithful, such as, the pope is emperor of the world, and the king of heaven, and God upon earth; the soul is immortal, with all those monstrous opinions to be found in the Roman dunghill of decretals, etc.” Defense prop. 27. FT 104.6

Archdeacon Blackburn A. D. 1772 said: FT 104.7

“Afterwards indeed Luther espoused the doctrine of the sleep of the soul, upon a Scripture foundation, and then he made use of it as a confutation of purgatory and saint-worship, and continued in that the belief to the last moment of his life.” Historical View, p. 15. FT 104.8

Timothy Dwight, D. D., LL. D., late President of Yale College, in his sermons, Vol. 1, p.163, says: FT 105.1

“Among Christians I know of but one [S. Drew] who has regarded the immortality of the soul as susceptible of demonstration. Should we believe with this ingenious writer, that the soul, metaphysically considered, is so formed, as naturally to be immortal, we must still acknowledge, because it cannot be denied, that its existence may terminate at death, or any other supposable period. Whatever has been created, can certainly be annihilated by the power which created it.” FT 105.2

Bishop Tillotson, in his Sermons, printed in 1774, Vol. 2, said: FT 105.3

“The immortality of the soul is rather supposed, or taken for granted, than expressly revealed in the Bible.” FT 105.4

Mr. Isaac Taylor said: FT 105.5

“As to the pretended demonstrations of immortality drawn from the assumed simplicity and indestructibility of the soul as an immaterial substance, they appear altogether inconclusive, or if conclusive, then such as must be admitted to apply with scarcely diminished force to all sentient orders; and it must be granted that whatever has felt, and has acted spontaneously, must live again and forever. We have the best reasons for the confident expectation of another life; nor are in any need to fortify our convictions by arguments which if valid prove immensely more than we can desire to see established, or could persuade ourselves to think in any degree probable.” Physical Theory p. 254. FT 105.6

The following concerning certain Italian reformers, is from Audlin’s Life of Luther. FT 106.1

“These were new lights, who came to announce that they had discovered an irresistible argument against the Mass, Purgatory, and Prayer to the saints. This was simply to deny the immortality of the soul, etc. They left Wittemburg and went to Geneva, where we find them in 1561, sustaining in a crowded school and in printed theses, that all which has been said about the Immortality of the soul was invented by antichrist for the purpose of making the pope’s pot boil.” FT 106.2

BIshop Jeremy Taylor says: FT 106.3

“Whatsoever had a beginning can also have an ending, etc., ...and therefore God had prepared a tree in Paradise to have supported Adam in his artificial immortality: immortality was not in his nature, but in the hands and arts in the favor and super-additions of God.” FT 106.4

PROF. STUART says: FT 106.5

“The light of nature can never scatter the darkness in question. This light has never yet sufficed to make even the question clear, to any portion of our benighted race, Whether the soul of man is immortal? Cicero, incomparably the most able defender of the soul’s immortality of which the heathen world can yet boast, very ingenuously confesses, that after all the arguments which he had adduced in order to confirm the doctrine in question, it so fell out, that his mind was satisfied of it only when directly employed in contemplating the arguments adduced in its favor. At all other times, he fell unconsciously into a state of doubt and darkness. FT 106.6

“It is notorious also that Socrates, the next most able advocate among the heathen for the same doctrine, has adduced arguments to establish the never-ceasing existence of the soul, which will not bear the test of examination.” FT 107.1

Dr. Adam Clarke says: FT 107.2

“What do we know of the spiritual world? How do souls exist separate from their respective bodies? Of what are they capable, and what is their employment? Who can answer these questions? Perhaps nothing can be said much better of the state, than is said Job 10:21: ‘A land of obscurity like darkness, and the shadow of death;’ a place where death rules over which he projects his shadow, intercepting every light of every kind of life.” Christian Theology, p. 370. FT 107.3

DR. PRIESTLEY says: FT 107.4

“If we search the scriptures for passages expressive of the state of man at death, we find such declarations as expressly exclude any trace of sense, thought, or enjoyment. See Psalm 6:5; Job 14:7,” Reg. Ency., p. 784. FT 107.5

PROF. KNAPP says: FT 107.6

“This doctrine respecting the immortality of the soul, in the strict philosophical sense of the term, is of far less consequence to religion than is commonly supposed. The reason why so much importance has been supposed to attach to this doctrine, is that it was considered as essential to the metaphysical proof of the immortality of the soul. But since the immortality of the soul, in the strictest sense, can never be made fully and obviously certain, whatever philosophical arguments may be urged in its favor, the proof of immortality should never be built upon it.” Knapp’s Christian Theology. FT 107.7

The Advent Herald, published at Boston, Mass., by J. V. Himes, says: FT 108.1

“Living is a condition nowhere affirmed of souls disconnected from their bodies. For souls to live, is for them to be reunited to their bodies. As, when disconnected from the body, the soul is under the dominion of death, and hades, it follows that for it to live, is to free it from that dominion.” FT 108.2

H. H DOBNEY, Baptist Minister of England, says: FT 108.3

“If in these days of multiplied infallibilities, it may be allowed us to prefer an apostolic and inspired exposition of the original record, we shall respectfully take leave to affirm that there is no expression on the opening page of a progressive revelation, which teaches the unutterably grand prerogative of an uncontingent immortality for all mankind.” Future Punishment, p. 120. FT 108.4

The following concerning the origin of the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul, is from Bible vs. Tradition, p. 302. FT 108.5

“Let it be registered as the genuine genealogy of a fundamental doctrine of modern British Christendom, that the Pagan Plato was its father, and the profligate Pope Leo its foster-father. Born and bred by the Pagan philosophy and 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!” FT 108.6

Among the writers against the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul, not quoted in the foregoing extracts, are the following: Dr. Whately, Archbishop of Dublin: Edward White, Congregational Minister in Hereford; W. Glen Monecrief, Congregational Minister in Edinburgh; J. Phantom Ham, Congregational Minister of Bristol; and Sir James Stephen, Professor of Modern History at Cambridge. FT 109.1