CHAPTER II: OF THE SOUL.

OF THE SOUL. __________________________________________________________________

§ I.--SOUL'S REALITY AND GREATNESS.

ON the very threshold of this subject we are arrested by the humiliating necessity of confessing ignorance. That which formed one of the high themes of Christ's teaching--the soul--is absolutely unknown, so far as respects its distinctive essence and nature. At the same time the ignorance thus confessed is not peculiar to this region of thought, Tor that which we call matter, and which is immediately and constantly before our senses, is as little understood as that which lies beyond the reach of sense, and which we call soul or spirit. Is there then any real distinction between the two? is there in the nature of man an actual element answering to the word spiritual, something distinct from and higher than the material organization? This is the question which has burdened and troubled the ages and up to this day the only reply to it which at all satisfies the reason, and furnishes ground for an enlightened faith, is that which finds in the soul itself its own proper evidence. The spirituality of man we hold to be a primitive truth, an original intuition, which the same mighty hand that formed our nature at the first, planted within it and made an integral part of it. Whether the appeal be made by each individual to his own consciousness, or whether he take the wider range of his personal observation, or whether he search into the history of nations, whether he limit investigation to his own times, or extend it back into the past ages, we hold that the conclusion we have named is the only one which finally commends itself, as legitimate and consistent. One thing is certain, that the reasonings of the past ages, apart from intuition, have not conducted men to a clear, uniform, and decisive result. The region has proved too profound and too dark for feeble and limited beings to explore, and the human intellect has returned from the search after evidence, bewildered and oppressed. At the same time, justice demands the confession that the intuitional proof is by no means in all respects unexceptionable. It is often extremely difficult to reach the true voice of human nature as it is constituted by God, and to read the native, spontaneous verdict of the soul in reference to itself. There are most painful discrepancies and confusions, and the testimony admits of being woefully corrupted and even altogether suppressed.

The fact is not to be denied, that the nations and the ages have not agreed, and do not now perfectly agree, in one energetic response to the question of the soul's reality, as distinct from the material organization. On the one hand, we can not shut our eyes to reckless skepticism in some, and to sensualism and moral debasement in many more; and on the other hand, there are tokens without number of laborious yet fruitless speculations of deep and unsatisfied longings, of dark conjectures and of torturing fears. The light kindled by God in the soul has had to struggle for its preservation and its purity. The voice of man's nature has always come up amid the clamor of other and hostile sounds. That voice has not been listened to; sometimes it has been so long unheeded, that at length it has ceased to make itself heard at all. Even where it has been distinctly recognized, men have shrunk back from the difficulties and the mysteries to which it seemed to conduct. The idea of a spirit inhabiting the body is hard to be understood; the origin of the spirit, the nature of its connection with the body, its laws and its destinies--all are mysterious and abstruse. It is much more easy to believe that man is what the senses teach concerning him, and no more; it is even more agreeable, on some accounts, to believe only this, and it becomes even more agreeable as the mental and especially the moral condition deteriorates. Faith in any thing beyond the senses becomes more and more unwelcome and unlikely, and at last is morally impossible

Without consulting the history of remote ages and of distant lands, our own times will supply evidence sufficiently extended on this subject, and our own country will furnish instances the counterpart of which, we need not doubt, can be found in all other regions of the earth. Among ourselves, there are human beings that scarcely know that they have a soul. A faint echo of the divine voice may still linger in these sunken natures, and it may never be absolutely impossible to awaken them and to make them catch the dying sound, but virtually they live on as if that voice had never been uttered, and as if no echo of it lingered within them. These beings, from their birth upward, have put forth no powers but those of their bodies, and have conversed only with the objects of sense. The external world alone--the labors, interests, attractions, duties, and wants which belong to it--has successfully appealed to them. There has been every thing to deaden the sense of a higher nature, little to awaken and stimulate it. The struggle to provide for daily necessities, and still more the indulgence of low sensual appetites and confirmed habits of vice, have rendered every thing connected with a spiritual world uncongenial and alarming. In this way, multitudes among .us are scarcely ever disturbed by the thought, that they have a soul. They think only of the body and of the outward world, and are utter strangers to their rational and responsible nature and to their solemn destiny. They have lost all sense of the dignity, the duties, the power, and the worth which belongs to them. For human beings in this condition, the very first necessity is to know themselves, and the very highest boon which it is possible to bestow on them is a knowledge of themselves.

Jesus came to the world with this boon in his hand, at a time when the soul was awfully unknown. An age of marvelous intellectual activity, of high cultivation, and of abundant produce, of its kind, scarcely believed in the soul. A few of the more privileged and gifted minds, a few wise and earnest men, longed for inward light, and they found it in measure; but to the world generally the soul was almost unknown. Even in Judea, gross materialism had darkened and enervated religion. It seemed to be imagined that the service of God needed no intellect, no conscience, no heart, no spiritual nature, but only eyes, hands, lips, features of the countenance, movements of the body.' To Jews and Gentiles, the soul in its real greatness, in its noble attributes, in its vast capacities, and in its high destinies, was practically unknown. There was needed, if not a revealer of what was new, a restorer of what had long been all but lost, a quickener of what lay dead and buried.

Who shall stand forth to tell to man that he has a soul? Who shall redeem the birthright so vilely cast away, and lift up in the sight of all nations the forgotten, forsaken, dishonored mind? Who shall read aloud the handwriting of God on the nature of man, restore the text once so fairly inscribed, clear it from all false glosses, all various readings, all mistakes and blots? Who shall give back to the world the Divine original, after the interpolations and corruptions of a thousand ages? Jesus of Nazareth has done nothing less than this. In his teaching may be found the reality (and not less the greatness, the accountability, and the endless life) of the soul, revealed with a luminousness and a fullness, for which we look in vain elsewhere.

There is no formal exposition in the recorded sayings of Christ of the doctrine of the soul, its origin, its nature, its union with the body, its powers, its laws, and its fate. None of these form the subject of elaborate argumentation, or of brilliant discussion. There is no array of evidences on the one hand, and no enumeration and refutation of errors on the other hand. Nothing like proof is ever attempted. Jesus spoke to men, as if he knew that they did not need proof, and that they already had within them the highest proof, of which the subject admitted. He spoke of the soul, as of a truth already ascertained and indisputable, which, however, men had wickedly excluded from their minds. He spoke like one whose office was to announce that of which they ought not to have been ignorant, and to remind them of that which they never ought to have forgotten. His method was direct appeal to the nature of man--clear solemn appeal, in a matter of which he left themselves to be the judges. His ministry was a proclamation of all places, circumstances, and connections, of the doctrine of the soul. Underneath all his teachings this doctrine lies; closely interwoven with them, directly suggested by them, often conspicuously standing out from them. He would have the world know and believe that there is a spiritual nature in man, an invisible, precious part of his being, and that the forgotten soul is a profound, a universal reality. All times, all nations, all conditions, rich and poor, bond and free, alike are distinguished in this respect; it is the birthright of all, the common inheritance of man. The reality of the soul was involved in His doctrine of a reign of God; in that of sin and that of pardon: in that of religion, since its place and its essence alike are spiritual; in that of prayer and that of worship; in that of piety toward God, and in that of human virtue. His entire teaching rests on the basis of man's spiritual nature, and without this would be utterly unmeaning. His ministry was a voice to the world, on behalf of the soul, familiarizing the lost idea, and pleading for its restoration.

The mechanism of the body is curious and mysterious, the earth around and the skies above are full of wonders, the present life has its interests, attractions, and noble uses but there is that within man to which, not in the frame of the body, nor in the structure of the visible creation, nor in the machinery of the present life, any resemblance can be found. Christ's voice proclaimed the soul and amid the degradation, the profound torpor, and the guilty self-abandonment of the world, the sound was renewed and prolonged, The soul! the soul! And that whose being was thus heralded, was in itself truly great. Its origin exalts it marvelously. The offspring of God, and bearing on it the image of the Father, the soul is great. Its attributes, incomparably higher than any which reside in matter, make it great. Its vast capacities, also, and, most of all, its immortal destiny, make it great. In the Gospels, the soul is often contrasted with earthly things, and lifted up above them all. The words of Jesus are framed to convey to the bosom of a man a solemn assurance, and to create a deep conviction of his unutterable worth. As a matter of fact, they have done this in the most unpromising circumstances, and have effected what all other agency fails to effect. The ignorant, the uncultivated, and the vicious, have been taught by them to reverence themselves, and to recognize the sacredness of their own being. In the teaching of Christ, the soul is the man, and determines his position in the scale of existence; not the body, not outward possessions, not social rank, not any thing visible, not any thing connected only with the present world; but the spiritual nature, its powers, principles, and moral condition. The soul is the man; in it are all his real distinctions, all his worth, his dignity, and his happiness; there lies his character in the universe, there his whole being for good or for evil--there and nowhere else. The Gospels do not assist us in defining and comprehending the essence of spirit, or in solving the hard questions of metaphysics respecting the connection between matter and mind, how the latter acts upon and through the former, and is in turn constantly affected by it. But they have filled the world with a most blessed sound; there is a soul in man, and the soul is, beyond expression, great and precious. __________________________________________________________________

§ II.--THE SOUL'S ACCOUNTABILITY AND IMMORTALITY.

Accountability belongs only to the rational and moral nature, and it belongs to this, of necessity. A river flows on in its course; but whether rapidly or slowly, in a wide or narrow stream, and with clear or troubled waters, it flows unconsciously and without meriting either praise or blame. The tree strikes its roots and spreads its branches; but we attribute to it no virtue; and when it withers and perishes, we charge it with no crime. The animal frame is sound and healthy, or it is attacked by disease, or is struck down by sudden accident, or seems to sink of itself; but no judgment is passed upon it, as if it deserved either commendation or condemnation. The irrational creature walks, flies, creeps, or swims; it seeks its food in the herb of the field, or it preys upon some other form of life in order to sustain its own; but neither good nor evil is asserted of it on these accounts. The river, the tree, the bodily frame, do not act, but are acted upon. Consciousness, intelligence, volition, are wanting to them. They are only what they are made, and as they are affected by circumstances, over which they can exert no control. Even the living creature, though a voluntary agent in certain respects, is under the irresistible law of instinct, and has no sense of God and of right and wrong to govern its choice.

The spiritual nature of man belongs to quite another order of existence. It is not passive merely, but active; and its activity is not instinctive merely, but intelligent and voluntary. Here is Reason, here Conscience, here Will, the royal power in the soul, the presiding judge in the inward tribunal, who hears what the understanding, the affections, the inclinations, and appetites, and" above all, the conscience, have to say, and thereafter chooses and resolves. Here is the soul's power of self-determination. It is not compelled, not placed under irresistible laws like those of instinct; it is constituted to choose and refuse for itself. The entire doctrine of responsibility is involved in this fact. If the acts of the soul were at any time involuntary, or compulsory, and not the effect of its determination and free choice, it would be thus far blameless and meritless; but they can not be so. What the soul is, and does, it chooses to be, and do; and it is, therefore, and to this extent, responsible. The waters of the river, the leaves and fruit of the tree, the condition of the human body, and the movements of the irrational creature, have in them neither moral goodness nor moral evil; but the thoughts, affections, tastes, principles, purpose; and choices of the soul originate with itself; spring out of its will, and render it the proper object of commendation, or of reprehension.

Oftener, perhaps, than under any other aspect, Jesus represents the human soul as exposed to that Eye which unerringly perceives all its evil and its good, and he teaches that therefore there is unutterable solemnity in every act of the spiritual nature, and that what a man thinks, feels, resolves, or does, is the gravest of all questions. The lesson is forever true; we need to feel that we can never for a moment escape the immutable law, "Sin is death; holiness is salvation." The God of the spiritual universe is forever looking upon us, and his sentence is pronounced for us, or against us. The doctrine of the last judgment is one of the many forms of the doctrine of responsibility. The parable of the ten virgins, of the laborers in the vineyard, of the steward, of the talents, of the husbandmen, of the wheat and the tares, of the barren fig-tree, are so many varied representations of this overwhelming truth. The scrutiny of God is likened to the process of fanning and sifting wheat, or to that of dissolving and testing metals. The perfect rectitude of the Judge, and his perfect knowledge of the innumerable peculiarities of each case are declared. The universality and the minuteness of the reckoning which will be taken, are foreshown. Every secret thought, it is affirmed, and every idle word will be brought into judgment. This spiritual nature of man makes even his short residence on earth awfully solemn, and invests every moment with everlasting interest. Self-inspection, watchfulness, and prayer, become the first duty of beings constituted as we are, endowed with conscience, reason, and will--beings, besides, who are destined to an existence, of which the present earthly life is only the commencement and the promise.

It is often assumed that immateriality involves .immortality. It does involve indivisibility--the immaterial is the indivisible but whether indivisibility and immortality are synonymous may admit of some doubt. Matter is made up of parts it is capable from its nature of being decompounded and dissolved. But are we quite sure that decomposition and dissolution are destruction--are we not rather sure that they are not? Does not all the evidence on this subject which we possess sustain the conclusion that matter is not destroyed--that, though its parts are separated and its form changed, it is not destroyed, not annihilated? If, then, we can not argue destructibility from divisibility in the case of matter, it is palpably fallacious to rest the proof of indestructibility in the case of mind, on indivisibility, that is immateriality. The soul is imperishable, but the certainty of this must not be grounded on the fact that it is immaterial and indivisible. The self-action and self-government of mind exalt it immeasurably above unconscious matter, and above all animal instincts and faculties. Its intellectual, and especially its moral powers, its unlimited capacities, and its lofty aspirations, create a strong presumption that it is formed for a higher destiny than they. But a strong presumption is not positive proof.

The absolute certainty of the soul's eternal existence is distinctly affirmed by Christ; but the ground of this certainty is shown to be not so much its immaterial nature as its moral condition. In Christ's teaching, holiness and holy being are immortal; godliness is immortal; rectitude, purity, truth, love, are immortal and the soul in which these virtues dwell is an heir of eternal life: but that which has surrendered itself to ignorance, impurity, and enmity to good and to God, is an heir of eternal perdition. Even on this earth, incipient spiritual perdition may be awfully evident. There are instances even here of what may literally be called the soul's death, the death of intellect, heart, and conscience; appalling examples of the effect of moral evil in darkening, enfeebling, imbruting the inward nature, so that it seems bereft of all its rational and moral powers. And it must not be forgotten that on earth there exist causes to draw forth the energies of the guilty soul, which can not operate hereafter. All good beings and all good shall hereafter be forever separated from evil beings. Evil shall hereafter be alone, and alone shall develop its own. rank and deadly nature, and exhibit its unmitigated effects. If this be true, and if evil beings shall be left absolutely alone in the midst only of evil, it is not hard to imagine that, in the progress of ages, they must become a terrible wreck, unutterably worse than any thing which earth has ever witnessed, and shall furnish a tremendous and everlasting vindication of the language "lost souls," "perished minds," "fires quenched," "lights gone out forever in the blackness of darkness."

Jesus Christ teaches that sin is perdition; not that at some future day it shall produce death, but that it is death. From first to last, throughout all its course, at every moment, moral evil is only death. Unless it be extirpated, the soul can only die it may exist in the sense of simply being, but it is really dying rather than living; and forever, its existence is a death, a process of perdition, whose final issue lies behind an impenetrable nail. But life is the destiny of that nature which has been emancipated from moral evil. There is a holier and mightier vitality than that of the animal frame, or even than the physical life of the mind; that is, its power to think, feel, and resolve. There is a life of life to man. God is the spring of pure being. Separated from him by ignorance or false views, by conscious guilt, distrust, and enmity, the soul carries in it the seeds of death, and in order to live, it must be restored to God, and God must be restored to it, to its knowledge, confidence, and love. It is this life of God in man which Christ's gospel teaches is eternal; which not only shall never be extinguished, but is essentially and necessarily immortal. On earth, in heaven, any where, every where, throughout the universe, this is the eternal life; the only eternal life known to Christianity--union or reunion of the created mind with God. It is this which shall survive uninjured the separation of soul and body. That separation shall not harm the nobler being, but the spiritual faculties shall be improved instead of being enfeebled by the crisis through which they have passed; and the life of life within, unscathed, un touched, shall find itself in a new and genial sphere, with eternity for its irreversible inheritance. The soul's endless being is intelligence, rectitude, purity, love, and all goodness.

This is brought to light by the Gospel, but nowhere else. "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord." [36] God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believed on him should not perish, but have everlasting life." [37] "God's commandment is life everlasting." [38] "To whom shall we go," said the disciples to Jesus, "thou past the words of eternal life?" [39] "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God," etc.
[40] "He that receiveth my words hath everlasting life." [41] The words of Christ are likened to a "well of water springing up to everlasting life." [42] "Thy brother shall rise again," Jesus said to Martha, when her brother Lazarus lay in the tomb. She replied, "I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection, at the last day. Jesus answered, He that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and he that liveth and believeth on me shall never die." [43] Thus impressively and majestically did Christ announce the Divine life in the soul of man, a life unhurt by the death of the body, and of immortal duration. If the miracle of the raising of Lazarus be counted for nothing, at least on some occasion of bereavement, words of this import, words of unexampled simplicity, dignity, and strength fell from Christ's lips. Beside the graves of men, and at their festive boards,. on all occasions Christ proclaimed the Soul! It is real! it is great! it is accountable! it is immortal! The body shall die. The earth and these heavens shall pass away; but the Soul endures forever, in Life or in Perdition! __________________________________________________________________

[36] Romans, vi. 23.
[37] John, iii. 16.
[38] Ib. xii. 50.
[39] Ib. vi. 68.
[40] Ib. xvii. 3.
[41] Ib. v. 24.
[42] Ib. iv. 14.

[43] John, xi. 25. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________