the standpoint of the Bible; the Bible is to be taken as the standard of
authority by which all conflicting claims respecting the nature of man,
must be decided. The authenticity of the Scriptures, in reference to those
who deny their authority, is an antecedent question, into the discussion
of which it is not the province of this little work to enter. A word,
however, by way of digression, may be allowed in reference to its
authorship.
Credentials of the Bible.
1. The Bible claims to be the word of God. Those who wrote it assert that
they wrote as they “were moved by the Holy Ghost;” and they append to what
they utter, a “Thus saith the Lord.”
2. If it is not what it claims to be, it is an _imposture_ invented by
_deceivers_ and _liars_.
3. _Good_ men would not deceive and lie; therefore they were not the ones
who invented the Bible.
4. If, therefore, it was invented by men at all, it must have been
invented by _bad_ men.
5. All liars and religious impostors are bad men; but—
6. The Bible repeatedly and most explicitly forbids lying and imposture,
under the threatening of most condign punishment.
7. Would, therefore, liars and impostors invent a book which more than any
other book ever written, denounces lying and imposture, thus condemning
themselves to the severest judgments of God, and at last to eternal death?
8. If, then, the Bible is not the invention of good men,—because such men
would not lie and deceive; nor of evil men,—because such men would not
condemn themselves; nor of good or evil angels, for the same reasons, who
else can be its author, but he who claims to be, that is, the living God?
9. If, therefore, from the very nature of the case, it must be God’s book,
why not believe it, and obey it?
To return: Appeal is therefore made to the Bible; and the object is to
learn what the Bible teaches about Spiritualism. When the claim is put
forth that it is the disembodied spirits of dead men who make the
communications, the Bible reader is at once aware of a conflict of claims.
In times when the Bible was written, there were practices among men which
went under the names of “enchantment,” “sorcery,” “witchcraft,”
“necromancy,” “divination,” “consulting with familiar spirits,” etc. These
practices were all more or less related, but some of them bear an
unmistakable meaning. Thus, “necromancy” is defined to mean “a pretended
communication with the dead.” A “familiar spirit” was “a spirit or demon
supposed to attend on an individual, or to come at his call; the invisible
agent of a necromancer’s will.”—_Century Dictionary._ Spiritualists do not
deny that their intercourse with the invisible world comes under some, at
least, of these heads. But all such practices the Bible explicitly
forbids.
Deut. 18:9-12: “There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his
son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or
an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a
consulter with _familiar spirits_, or a wizard, or a _necromancer_. For
all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord.” Lev. 19:31:
“Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards,
to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God.” See also, 2 Kings 21:2, 6,
9, 11; Rev. 21:8; Gal. 5:19-21; Acts 16:16-18; etc. Thus plainly in both
the Old and New Testaments, are these practices forbidden.
An Impossibility.
But why does the Bible forbid such practices as necromancy, or a
“pretended” communication with the dead?—Because it would be only a
pretense at best; for such communication is impossible. The dead are
unconscious in their graves, and have no power to communicate with the
living. Let this truth be once established, and it is the death-blow to
the claims of Spiritualism, in the cases of all who will receive it.
Allusion has already been made to a popular and wide-spread dogma in the
Christian church which furnishes a basis for Spiritualism. It is that the
soul is immortal, and that the dead are conscious. Spirits make known
their presence, and claim to be the spirits of persons who have once lived
here in human bodies. Now if the Bible teaches that there is no such thing
as a disembodied human spirit, a knowledge of that fact would enable one
to detect at once the imposture of any intelligence which from behind the
curtain should claim to be such spirit. Any spirit seeking the attention
of men in this life, and claiming to be what the Bible says does not
exist, comes with a falsehood on its lips or in its raps, if the Bible is
true, and thus reveals its real character to be that of a deceiver. In
this case the Bible believer is armed against the imposture. No man likes
to be fooled. No matter therefore how nice the communicating intelligence
may seem, how many true things it may say, or how many good things it may
promise, the conviction cannot be evaded that no real good can be intended
or conferred by any spirit, or whatever it may be, masquerading under the
garb of falsehood, or pretending to be what it is not. On such a
foundation no stable superstructure can be reared. It becomes a
death-trap, sure to collapse and involve in ruin all those who trust
therein.
It is very desirable that the reader comprehend the full importance of the
doctrine, as related to this subject, that the dead are unconscious and
that they have no power to communicate with the living. This being
established, it sweeps away at one stroke the entire foundation of
Spiritualism. Evidence will now be presented to show that this is a Bible
doctrine; and wherever this is received, the fabric of Spiritualism from
base to finial falls; it cannot possibly stand. But where the doctrine
prevails that only the thin veil that limits our mortal vision, separates
us from a world full of the conscious, intelligent spirits of those who
have departed this life, Spiritualism has the field, beyond the
possibility of dislodgment. When one believes that he has disembodied
spirit friends all about him, how can he question that they are able to
communicate with him? and when some unseen intelligence makes its presence
known, and claims to be one of those friends, and refers to facts or
scenes, known only to them two, how can the living dispute the claim? How
can he refuse to accept a claim, which, on his own hypothesis, there is no
conceivable reason to deny? But if the spirits are not what they claim to
be, how shall the inexplicable phenomena attending their manifestations be
explained?—The Bible brings to view other agencies, not the so-called
spirits of the departed, to whose working all that has ever been
manifested which to mortal vision is mysterious and inexplicable, may be
justly attributed.
The Soul Not Immortal.
Spiritualism declares it to be the great object of its mission, to prove
the immortality of the soul, which, it says, is not taught in the
Scriptures with sufficient clearness, and is not otherwise demonstrated.
It well attributes to the Scriptures a lack of plain teaching in support
of that dogma; and it would have stated more truth, if it had said that
the Scriptures nowhere countenance such a doctrine at all. But, it is
said, the Scriptures are full of the terms, “soul” and “spirit.” Very
true; but they nowhere use those terms to designate such a part of man as
in common parlance, and in popular theology, they have come to mean. The
fact is, the popular concept of the “soul” and “spirit” has been
formulated entirely outside the Bible. Sedulously, unremittingly, for six
thousand years, the idea has been inculcated in the minds of men, from the
cradle to the grave, that man is a dual being, consisting of an outward
body which dies, and an inward being called “soul,” or “spirit,” which
does not die, but passes to higher spirit life, when the body goes into
the grave. The father of this doctrine is rarely referred to by its
believers, as authority, possibly through a little feeling of
embarrassment as to its parentage; for he it was who announced it to our
first parents in these words: “Ye shall not surely die!” Gen. 3:4. When
men began to die, it was a shrewd stroke of policy on the part of him who
had promised them that they should not die, to try to prove to those who
remained that the others had not really died, but only changed conditions.
It is no marvel that he should try to make men believe that they possessed
an immaterial, immortal entity that could not die; but, in view of the
ghastly experiences of the passing years, it is the marvel of marvels that
he should have succeeded so well. The trouble now is that men take these
meanings which have been devised and fostered into stupendous strength
outside the pale of Bible teaching, and attach them to the Bible terms of
“soul” and “spirit.” In other words, the mongrel pago-papal theology which
has grown up in Christendom, lets the Bible furnish the terms, and
paganism the definitions. But from the Bible standpoint, these definitions
do not belong there; they are foreign to the truth, and the Bible does not
recognize them. They are as much out of place as was the inventor of them
himself in the garden of Eden. Let the Bible furnish its own definitions
to its own terms, and all will be clear. The opinion of John Milton, the
celebrated author of Paradise Lost, is worthy of note. In his “Treatise on
Christian Doctrine,” Vol. I, pp. 250, 251, he says:—
“Man is a living being, intrinsically and properly one individual,
not compound and separable, not, according to the common opinion,
made up and framed of two distinct and different natures, as of
body and soul, but the whole man is soul, and the soul, man; that
is to say, a body or substance, individual, animated, sensitive,
and rational.”
In this sense the word is employed many times; but whoever will trace the
use of the words “soul” and “spirit” through the Bible, will find them
applied also to a great variety of objects; as, person, mind, heart, body
(in the expression “a dead body”), will, lust, appetite, breath, creature,
pleasure, desire, anger, courage, blast, etc., etc., in all nearly fifty
different ways. But it is a fact which should be especially noted, that in
not a single instance is there the least hint given that anything
expressed by these terms is capable of existing for a single moment, as a
conscious entity, or in any other condition, _without the body_! This
being so, none of these, according to the Bible, are the agency claimed to
be present in Spiritualism.
Another fact in reference to this point, should be allowed its decisive
bearing. The question now under investigation is, Is the soul immortal, as
Spiritualism has taken upon itself to teach, and claims to demonstrate?
The Bible is found to be so lavish in the use of the terms “soul” and
“spirit,” that these words occur in the aggregate, _seventeen hundred
times_. Seventeen hundred times, by way of description, analysis,
narrative, historical facts, or declarations of what they can do, or
suffer, the Bible has something to say about “soul” and “spirit.” The most
important question to be settled concerning them, certainly, is whether
they are immortal or not. Will not the Bible, so freely treating of these
terms, answer this question? Very strange, indeed, if it does not. But
does it once affirm that either the soul or the spirit is immortal?—_Not
once!_ Does it ever apply to them the terms “eternal,” “deathless,”
“neverdying,” or any word that bears the necessary meaning of
immortal?—Not in a single instance. Does it apply to them any term from
which even an inference, necessary or remote, can be drawn that they are
immortal? Even reduced to this attenuated form, the answer is still an
emphatic and overwhelming, _No!_ Well, then, does it say _anything_ about
the nature and capabilities of existence of that which it denominates soul
or spirit?—Yes; it says the soul is in danger of the grave, may die, be
destroyed, killed, and that the spirit may be wounded, cut off, preserved,
and so, conversely, made to perish.
It is sometimes claimed that it is not necessary that the Bible should
affirm the immortality of the soul, because it is so self-evident a fact
that it is taken for granted. But no one surely can suppose that the
immortality of the soul is more self-evident than that of Jehovah; yet the
Bible has seen fit to affirm his immortality in most direct terms. 1 Tim.
1:17: “Now unto the King eternal, _immortal_, invisible, the only wise
God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” 1 Tim. 6:16: “Who only
hath _immortality_, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto;
whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and power
everlasting. Amen.” Let, then, similar Bible testimony be found concerning
the soul; that is, that it is “immortal,” or “hath immortality,” and the
taken-for-granted device will not be needed.
Chapter Three.
THE DEAD UNCONSCIOUS.
From the fact now established that the soul is not immortal, it would
follow as an inevitable conclusion, that the dead are not conscious in the
intermediate state, and consequently cannot act the part attributed to
them in modern Spiritualism. But there are some positive statements to
which the reader’s attention should be called, and some instances supposed
to prove the conscious state which should be noticed.
1. _The Dead Know not Anything._—As a sample of the way the Bible speaks
upon this question, let the reader turn to the words of Solomon, in Eccl.
9:5, 6, 10: “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know
not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them
is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now
perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in anything that
is done under the sun.... Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with
thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in
the grave, whither thou goest.”
This language is addressed to the real, living, intelligent, responsible
man; and how could it be plainer? On the hypothesis of the commonly
believed distinction between the soul and the body, this must be addressed
to the soul; for the body considered as the mere material instrument
through which the soul acts, is not supposed of itself to know anything.
The body, as a body, independent of the soul, does not know that it shall
die; but it is that which knows, while one is alive, that it shall die—it
is that same intelligent being that, when dead, knows not anything. But
the spirits in Spiritualism do know many things in their condition;
therefore they are not those who have once lived on this earth, and passed
off through death; for such, once dead, this scripture affirms, know not
anything—they are in a condition in which there is “no work, nor device,
nor knowledge, nor wisdom.” This is a plain, straightforward, literal
statement; there is no mistaking its meaning; and if it is true, then it
is not true that the unseen agents working through Spiritualism, are the
spirits of the dead.
2. _The Spirit Returns to God._—Another passage from the same writer and
the same book, may recur to the mind of the reader, as expressing a
different and contradictory thought. Eccl. 12:7. “Then shall the dust
return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who
gave it.” A careful analysis of this passage reveals no support for
Spiritualism; for it does not say that the spirit, on returning to God, is
conscious, or is capable of coming back and communicating with mortals. It
is not denied that different component parts enter into the constitution
of man; and that these parts may be separated. Solomon himself may
therefore tell us what he means by the term “spirit” which he here uses.
He employs the same word in chapter. 3:21 of this same book, but says that
beasts have it as well as men. And then in verse 19, he explains what he
means, by saying that they (man and the lower animals) _all_ have one
_breath_. The record of man’s creation in Gen. 2:7, shows that a
vitalizing principle, called the “breath of life,” was necessary to be
imparted to the organized body, before man became a living being; and this
breath of life, as common to man and to all breathing animals, is
described in Gen. 7:21, 22, by the term רוח (_ruahh_), the same word that
is used for “breath,” in Eccl. 3:19, “spirit,” in verse 21, and “the
spirit,” which God gave to man, and which returns to God, in chapter 12:7.
Thus it is clear that reference is here made simply to the “breath of
life” which God at first imparted to man, to make him a living being, and
which he withdraws to himself, in the hour of man’s death. Job states the
same fact, and describes the process, in chapter 34:14, 15: “If he [God]
set his heart upon man, if he gather _unto himself_ his [man’s] spirit
[same word] and his breath; ... man shall turn again unto dust.” No one
can fail to see here that Job refers to the same event of which Solomon
speaks.
And at this point the question may as well be raised, and answered, Whence
comes this spirit which is claimed to be the real man, capable of an
independent and superior existence without the body? Bodies come into
existence by natural generation; but whence comes the spirit? Is it a part
of the body? If so, it cannot be immortal; for “that which is born of the
flesh is flesh.” John 3:6. Is it supplied to human beings at birth? If so,
is there a great storehouse, somewhere, of souls and spirits, ready-made,
from which the supply is drawn as fast as wanted in this world? And if so,
further, is it to be concluded that all spirits have had a pre-existence?
and then what was their condition in that state? And again, how does it
happen, on this supposition, that this spirit in each individual exhibits
so largely the mental and moral traits of the earthly parents? These
hypotheses not being very satisfactory, will it be claimed that God
creates these spirits as fast as children are born to need them? and if
so, who brings them down just in the nick of time? and by what process are
they incarnated? But if God has, by special act, created a soul or spirit
for every member of the human family since Adam, is it not a contradiction
of Gen. 2:2, which declares that _all_ God’s work of creation, so far as
it pertains to this world, was _completed_ by the close of the first week
of time? Again, how many of the inhabitants of this earth are the
offspring of abandoned criminality; and can it be supposed that God holds
himself in readiness to create souls which must come from his hands pure
as the dew of heaven, to be thrust into such vile tenements, and doomed to
a life of wretchedness and woe at the bidding of defiant lust? The
irreverence of the question will be pardoned as an exposure of the
absurdity of that theory which necessitates it.
3. _The Spirits of Just Men Made Perfect._—This expression is found in
Heb. 12:23, and seems, by some, to recognize the idea that spirits can
exist without the body, and are to be treated as separate entities. Thus
interpreted it might appear to give some support to Spiritualism. But it
will by no means bear such an interpretation. The apostle is contrasting
the privileges of Christians in the present dispensation, with the
situation of believers before the coming of Christ. What he sets forth are
blessings to be enjoyed in the present tense. Yes, says one, that is just
what I believe: We are come to spirits; they are all about us, and tip and
talk and write for us at our pleasure. But hold! nothing is affirmed of
spirits separately. The whole idea must be taken in. It is the “spirits of
_just men_ made perfect;” and the participle “made perfect” agrees with
“just men,” or literally “the just made perfect” (δικαίων τετελειωμένων),
not with “spirits.” It is the _men_ who are made perfect to whom we are
said to have come. But there are only two localities and two periods, in
which men are anywhere in the Scriptures said to be made perfect. One is
in this life and on this earth, and refers to religious experience (“Be ye
therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”);
the other is not relative, but actual and absolute, and refers to the
future immortal state when all the people of God will enter upon eternal
life together (“God having provided some better thing for us, that they
[the ancient worthies] without us should not be _made perfect_.” Heb.
11:40). Thus, taken in either of the only two ways possible, the text
furnishes no proof of Spiritualism. It doubtless refers to the present
state, the expression, “spirits of just men,” being simply a periphrasis
for “just men,” the same as the expression, “the God of the spirits of all
flesh” (Num. 16:22), means simply “the God of all flesh,” and the words
“your whole spirit, and soul, and body” (1 Thess. 5:23), means simply the
whole person.
4. _Spirits in Prison._—The apostle Peter uses an expression, which,
though perhaps not often quoted in direct defense of Spiritualism, is
relied upon extensively in behalf of the doctrine of the conscious state
of the dead, which, as already shown, is the essential basis of
Spiritualism. And such texts as these are here noticed to show to the
general reader, that the Bible contains no testimony in behalf of that
doctrine, but positively forbids it, as further quotations will soon be
introduced to show. The passage now in question is 1 Peter 3:19, where,
speaking of Christ, it says: “By which also he went and preached unto the
spirits in prison.” By the use of strong assumption, and some lofty
flights of the imagination, and keeping in the background the real intent
of the passage, a picture of rather a lively time in the spirit world, can
be constructed out of this testimony. Thus the spirits are said to be the
disembodied spirits of those who were destroyed by the flood. See context.
They were in “prison,” that is, in hell. When Christ was put to death upon
the cross, he immediately went by his disembodied spirit, down into hell
and preached to those conscious intelligent spirits who were there, and
continued that work till the third day when he was himself raised from the
dead. A thought will show that this picture is wrong, (1) in the time, (2)
in the condition of the people, (3) in the acting agent, and (4) in the
end to be attained. Thus, when Christ had been put to death, he was
“quickened” (or made alive), says the record, “by the Spirit.” This was
certainly not a personal disembodied spirit, but that divine agency so
often referred to in the Scriptures. “By which,” that is, this Spirit of
God, he went and preached. Then he did not go personally on this work. The
“spirits” were the antediluvians; for they were those who were disobedient
in the days of Noah. Now when were they preached to? Verse 20 plainly
tells us it was “_when_ once the longsuffering of God waited _in the days
of Noah_.” In accordance with these statements now let another picture be
presented: Christ, by his Spirit which was in Noah (1 Peter 1:11), and
thus through Noah, preached to the spirits, or persons, in Noah’s time,
who were disobedient, in order to save all from the coming flood who would
believe. They were said to be “in prison,” though still living, because
they were shut up under condemnation, and had only one hundred and twenty
years granted them in which to repent or perish. Thus Christ was
commissioned to preach to men said to be in prison, because in darkness,
error, and condemnation, though they were still living in the flesh. Isa.
61:1. Dr. Adam Clarke, the eminent Methodist commentator (_in loco_),
places the going and preaching of Christ in the days of Noah, and by the
ministry of Noah for one hundred and twenty years, and not during the time
while he lay in the grave. Then he says:—
“The word πνεῦμασι (spirits) is supposed to render this view of
the subject improbable, because this must mean _disembodied_
spirits; but this certainly does not follow; for the _spirits of
just men made perfect_ (Heb. 12:23), certainly means righteous
men, and men _still in the church militant_: and the Father of
spirits (Heb. 12:9) means men still in the body; and the God of
the spirits of all flesh (Num. 16:22 and 27:16), means _men, not_
in a disembodied state.”(1)