termination, and take up the continuity of thought. Now this, we say, is a great and most important fact. This idea, we are quite ready to admit, partakes of the instinctive. This idea, we are fully persuaded, separates man from the lower creatures. They have never conceived the idea of their immortality. It has never dawned across their minds. Man has conceived it, everywhere, and at all times. We take it that this grand idea, from the mere fact of its conception, connects man very closely with immortality. But we go farther than this. We say that on the part of many minds, in every age and in every race, there is a longing for that immortality of which man has formed the idea. And we add, moreover, that it is the higher and the nobler minds among the heathen which chiefly have longed for it. Such men as Socrates and Plato and Cicero have had the desire, rather than the grovelling and the sensual. But on the other hand, it is equally true that the number of those who did not long for this immortality was greater than of those who did. There were more who hoped for annihilation as man's end than of those who hoped for eternal life. And, once more, the number of those who did not believe in immortality embraced a very large proportion of mankind, outnumbering those who did not desire it as a blessing. Many and many a noble soul there was which, having tasted what good even this life had for them, and having conceived the idea of a life to which this life's troubles were unknown, and longing for such a life, were yet fain to confess they had no grounds for belief in it. Such is a brief but true account of the real opinion of mankind apart from direct revelation upon this subject. There was on the part of all a conception of the idea. There was on the part of the generality a disbelief in its truth. Very many shunned it as a most undesirable thing. Some, the best and noblest of men, longed for it. Even of these some were not able to accept it as a reliable truth.

Do we deny or make little of those portions of this view which favour the idea of immortality as possible or probable for us? No; we cling eagerly to them. They are a great and a needed help to our faith in the doctrine of a future eternal life. The bare fact of the idea as generally conceived is to us a proof that between man and immortality there is some very close connection. What is that connection? Our view, we confidently assert, alone of all views gives its place and room to every part of the above view of man in relation to immortality. It accounts for every fact. It is true to nature. We suppose man originally to have been created immortal. Hence his conception of the grand idea of immortality, of which otherwise we do not suppose he would ever have had any instinctive idea whatever. For this immortality some, the nobler minds, longed with all their hearts. Does not this enter into our view? All the minds that love the pure and the true, that feel the nobility of existence, that cannot bear the idea of losing it, that long for a better and an endless life, do not these find their place in that view of life in Christ which gives assurance to that which was in them nothing beyond a hope? We hold that immortality is for those who will know how to use it. But others there are, and they the majority of the race, who do not believe in this immortality, to whom the prospect of it is an awful prospect, not a bright look out. Sunk, degraded, unhappy, unable to enjoy life, unfit to use it, fretting against

the pure and the true, they long for the rest which is found in non-existence. Our system answers this instinct as it answers every other. It is throughout natural. We claim that it is throughout Scriptural as well.

There is yet another objection to our view advanced by Canon Farrar to which we must refer as it is one frequently made and urged as of great force. We have dwelt upon it already in our work on "Future Punishment," and would here add something additional.* Dr. Farrar says of our theory that it "leaves us with the ghastly conclusion that God will raise the wicked from the dead only that they may be tormented and at last destroyed." (Preface xvii.)

This objection, as we have said, is repeatedly brought against our theory. We will give it in a somewhat fuller form than our author has done in order that there may be no mistake as to its nature. Dr. Salmon, of Trinity College, Dublin, thus states it. "Whatever moral difficulties," he says, "there are in believing in the eternal punishment of the wicked, appear to me to apply with still greater force to the hypothesis of their temporary punishment. It would seem like vindictiveness, if God were to raise men from the dead, and unite their bodies and souls, only in order that, having tormented them a number of years, he might then consign them to annihilation. . . . If it be God's intention to annihilate any, pity would suggest that he will do so without inflicting preliminary torment." From this and the quotation from Canon Farrar we can fully understand this objection to our view.

It is urged then that if annihilation be the ultimate purpose of God for some, that it would be vindictive cruelty on his part to raise them up from their graves to suffer consciously at all. This objection can only be urged on the plea that such additional punishment would be unjust, or that it be useless. In reply we say that it would be neither unjust nor useless, and that therefore this objection falls to the ground.

We do not think there is any occasion to dwell on the first objection that may be made, viz., that such additional punishment would be unjust. Divine providence often inflicts suffering of this kind in this age, and we cannot see why he might not in another. But this objection is seldom made. The great stress is laid upon the notion that raising up any one to suffer conscious pain for a longer or a shorter period, when the ultimate end of that person is destruction, is unattended with any good object and is therefore cruelty. So far from supposing it useless, we believe that several possible or probable uses for such a procedure may be pointed out, but we will now only advert to one such. It will, we think, show the use, perhaps we might say the necessity for that resurrection of the wicked and their conscious temporary pain, which Canon Farrar describes as being on our view, 66 a ghastly conclusion."

Suppose then it were taught that for the wicked the first death which all die were their endless annihilation; that, do what they might, live as they might, oppress and wrong as they might, there was nothing more of conscious suffering to be feared than could happen to them in this life, that when they slept they would sleep on for ever, that no trumpet sound would

* The Duration and Nature of Future Punishment, 5th edition, p. 227. Elliot Stock, Paternoster Row.

+ "Two Sermons." By George Salmon, D.D., 2nd edition. Dublin, 1865.

awake, no voice of judge be heard, no tribunal of justice be set up before. which they should stand; in that case we say that a very great check would be removed from very many minds, and that bad as the world is it would then be worse. There are, unhappily but undoubtedly, very many minds to whom the idea of annihilation if it be unattended with conscious suffering has little deterrent power. Appeals must be made in their case to that which they will dread. While to some minds the prospect of annihilation comes home with tremendous power, urging them not to neglect a salvation which delivers them from so terrible a fate, there are other minds which must be approached by lower motives and whom the terrors of judgment must stir up to flee from wrath to come, or whose career of wickedness may at least be checked and kept in some restraint by the prospect of such. The theory then which teaches that the wicked will be raised to suffering before they are handed over to their utter and final destruction is of use and cannot be charged as cruel or vindictive. It may only lead some men, such as Felix or Herod, to tremble, or to an outward and partial reformation of conduct: it may lead others to true godly sorrow. (Acts xxiv. 25; Mark vi. 20.) In either case it has served a good purpose, and one worthy of God.

In taking leave of Canon Farrar, we beg to thank him for the kind manner in which he has spoken of us, and such of our works as he has seen on this great question. But we would also respectfully urge him to give a yet deeper attention to this momentous inquiry than he has done as yet. We would in especial ask him to apply the great powers of his mind to the Scriptural account of the nature of man. There is the root of this entire question. Error began with the misapprehension of it. (Gen. iii. 4.) Error will end when human nature is better understood, and immortality and life eternal seen to be no inalienable possession of man, but a gift at first conditionally given, withdrawn when the conditions were violated, restored in Christ Jesus, and which restoration constitutes the very essence of his blessed Gospel.

HENRY CONSTABLE.

CANON GARBETT ON THE IMMORTALITY OF
THE SOUL.

IV.

(Continued from page 262.)

7. OUT of twenty-four pages of the "Christian Observer," which are

occupied with Canon Garbett's treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, about nine (770-776 and 840-842) are taken up with what we cannot help thinking a rather questionable psychology not very clearly stated. It is, however, as far as we are concerned, nihil ad rem. We might, and for argument's sake we do, admit it all as sound and good and true. Our position is not touched by it.

To some things said in the course of it, but not, as seems to us, at all

essential to it, we have raised decided objections. We may remind our readers of our remarks just made on certain observations (pp. 771, 772) on Matt. x. 28; also of our allusions to the hypothesis-erroneously supposed to be our hypothesis-"If the salvation of the soul only meant that life would be continued after death by the special gift of Christ," &c. (p. 772); as well as of what we urged against Canon Garbett's "enormous presumption " argument (p. 841). But with these exceptions we can let all those nine pages pass for what they are worth.

How little they are worth against us will appear from Canon Garbett's own words (p. 840), when coming to a close of his psychological argu-· ment:-"We do not affirm that our argument suffices to prove strictly that the soul is immortal; but it does prove indisputably that the soul is a distinct substance from the body, that it has a life of its own which survives after the life of the body has ceased; and that therefore the separation we call death does not kill the soul, but that both in the righteous and the wicked, it survives afterwards and survives continuously." That is, as the next sentence explains, it survives continuously up to "the resurrection and the judgment." So that this long psychological discussion introduced into an argument to prove the unconditional immortality of the soul "from Scripture, and from Scripture alone," only avails to "prove indisputably" what is fully admitted by those who deny the unconditional immortality of the soul.

We are tempted to make another remark on the following passage, occurring in a sentence, which seems added, as containing the net result of this psychological discussion, if not part of the discussion itself.

"Our contention is that death . . . when it is applied to the soul... bears the analogous* sense of immobility, insensibility, and unconsciousness; and the laws of thought are such that we cannot say this without implying the continued existence of that which is without motion, sensibility, and consciousness. We cannot affirm these states of what is not, and has gone to nothing. This is the sense in such passages as, ' If we be dead with Christ (Rom. vi. 8); You who were dead in trespasses and sins hath he quickened' (Eph. ii. 1); Thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead' (Rev. iii. 1)."

This is strange doctrine indeed. We cannot help asking ourselves, Does Canon Garbett really mean it ? or has he written hastily and without his usual care and thought ?

1. On the last two of the texts adduced we have spoken already in connection with what follows, where they occur. But surely Canon Garbett knows that the words he quoted from Rom. vi. 8 really, and according to the literal rendering of the original, mean, "If we died with Christ." Does he really mean to predicate immobility, insensibility, or unconsciousness of the soul of either Christ or the Christian owing to the latter having died, or if he likes, being dead with the former ?

2. But even as regards unregenerate souls dead in sins according to his meaning of those words, are they without motion, sensibility, and consciousness? Is an unregenerate man merely a body with an unconscious soul in it? When an unregenerate man dies and his body attains

* Analogous, that is, to the sense it bears" when it is applied to the body of a man" or "to the body of a beast," i.e., the cessation of the functions of life, consequent "immobility, insensibility, unconsciousness" (p. 842).

"through the cessation of the functions of life" to " consequent immobility, insensibility, unconsciousness," does his soul, which has been dead all along, continue to be without motion, sensibility, and consciousness? If so, then we have what some on our side contend for; but what we understood Canon Garbett as well as ourselves contended against-unconsciousness and insensibility in the intermediate state. Indeed, it would seem that Canon Garbett goes all the way, and farther, with the Christadelphians, and predicates unconsciousness, immobility, and insensibility of the soul from the birth of the man through life, through death, and on for ever. He maintains indeed that the soul exists without motion, sensibility, and consciousness, and that it exists for ever. But he would be a very contentious man who would care to argue about whether an entity exists for ever or not if it is for ever" without motion, sensibility, and consciousness."

3. Perhaps, however, Canon Garbett holds that the soul that was previously dead, and so" without motion, sensibility, and consciousness," is quickened after the death of the man or of the body, for the endurance of the intermediate state of torment in Hades; or at any rate that it is quickened and so gifted for the first time with motion, sensibility, and consciousness at the second resurrection, and for the endurance of the eternal torments of Gehenna. But then he must either deny all future penal death of the soul, "that the soul that sinneth it shall die," or else he must altogether change his meaning of "death when it is applied to the soul;" for clearly there can be no endurance of torment for a soul that is dead in the sense of being "without motion, sensibility, and cousciousness."

There is no slight confusion in Canon Garbett's language, perhaps also in his thoughts on this matter. We venture to suggest to him, and to those of our readers who think with him, that it would be avoided by the adoption of conditional immortality for the soul and the eventual reality of death for both soul and body in the second death of the unregenerate; all previous mention of death for them being partial as regards the body, proleptic as regards the soul and the resurrection body, and perhaps also figurative as regards the corruption and loathesomeness and deadliness of sin. We may, surely, whether the Scriptures do so or not, speak of sin as death in the same figurative sense in which we speak of it as disease, blindness, leprosy, &c.

"Life to the body," says Canon Garbett (p. 846), "is the presence of the soul within it: life to the soul is the presence of God with it." But can the godless and the unregenerate, whose souls are dead, and so "without motion, sensibility, and consciousness," be said in that case to have life even in the body? Can the presence of a dead soul " unconscious, immovable, insensible," within it be life to the body? Besides, he had said before of "the soul and body" "united in one man "Each is an entity; each complete, each organised, each living. It is not only that the whole lives, but that each part lives with a life of its own." Either this is a psychology only of the regenerate (though it seems to he said of all mankind), or else there is further confusion and self-contradiction. Instead of soul and body each living with a life of its own, he says elsewhere that "life to the body is the presence of the soul within it," and that in the unregenerate the soul, though it

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