§ 6. This System is properly named Materialism. That it is not a misrepresentation of this system to pronounce it materialism, will be questioned by no intelligent mind. I speak of it thus, however, not invidiously, but merely to explain my use of the term in this treatise. But it is a gross absurdity for its advocates to reject as offensive the application of this term to their system. There is a great deal of such miserable chicanery in the present age. Men become advocates of certain views, which have always been known by a definite and distinguishing name; and yet, with a pusillanimity which is sadly in contrast with their professions of fearlessness and love of the truth, shrink from the frank and manly avowal of their position, and then, with no attempt to verify the charge, accuse every one of misrepresentation who, for distinction's sake, gives to their theory the name by which it ever has been known, and by which alone it can be intelligently distinguished. The time is past when any sensible mind will suffer itself to be influenced by a mere name. When, therefore, a man comes forward to assail the received doctrines of the Gospel, let him not shrink from the responsibility of his position, on the puerile and offensive plea that he otherwise will not be candidly heard. I have ever regarded this maneuver, and must still regard it, as a discreditable ruse for awakening an undeserved prejudice on the one hand, and for obtaining a blind sympathy on the other, to which the author, at least, dreaming, and as we read in the case of visions) without the presence, as far as we know, of any material object." Of course, then, the appearance of Jehovah to Moses, (Ex. xxxiv, 5–8,) who both saw and heard him, was material, or only imagined on the part of Moses. So, too, in respect to the angels who appeared to Zechariah and Mary, and to the soldiers and women at the sepulchre. They were material, or only imaginary. To say these were visions is saying nothing to the purpose, unless by vision, in this sense, is meant the soul or spirit perceiving. Disembodied spirits and angels can and do see each other; and if so, why may not a spirit embodied in flesh sometimes also perceive, independent of the corporeal organs of perception and sensation? Will Dr. Whately please See Addison's Spectator, No. 110. inform us! of such a movement, can have no just title. Truth is frank and fearless, and never can suffer in an encounter with error in a fair and open field.* § 7. Doctrine of the Evangelical Churches. In connection with the foregoing summary of the Annihilationist views, it will be proper here to state briefly the doctrines of the Evangelical Churches on the subject of the soul's immortality. The whole may be presented in the following passage, which forms the thirty-second chapter of the Presbyterian Confession of Faith: "The bodies of men after death return to dust, and see corruption; but their souls, (which neither die nor sleep,) having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them. The souls of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies; and the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day. Besides these two places for souls separated from their bodies, the Scripture acknowledgeth none. At the last day such as are found alive shall not die, but be changed; and all the dead shall be raised up with the self-same bodies, and none other, although with different qualities, which shall be united again to their souls forever. The bodies of the unjust shall, by the power of Christ, be raised to dishonor; the bodies of the just, by his Spirit, unto honor, and be made conformable to his own glorious body." See also Larger Catechism, questions 85, 86, and Shorter Catechism, question 37. In chapter thirty-third it is stated also that at the day of judgment "not only the apostate angels shall be judged, but likewise that all persons who have lived upon earth * The general reader may find in the Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, pp. 783-786, and in Buchanan's Modern Atheism, p. 192, and seq., a sufficient justification of our application of the term Materialism to the foregoing system, shall appear before the tribunal of Christ. Then shall the righteous go into everlasting life, and receive that fullness of joy and refreshing which shall come from the presence of the Lord; but the wicked, who know not God, and obey not the Gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power." See also Larger Catechism, quest. 87–90. Such are the received views of the whole evangelical Church: The Lutheran and the Reformed on the Continent; the Presbyterian, the Congregational, the Wesleyan, and the Episcopal Churches in England; while in this country all those denominations entertain the doctrine also, and as above expressed.* § 8. The Position of Archbishop Whately. In consequence, however, of a turn which the discussion has recently taken both in this country and in Europe, we are under the painful necessity of here adverting to a matter connected with one of those Churches. I refer to the Episcopal. The doctrine of this branch of the Church of Christ on the subject before us has never been doubtfully expressed either in the writings of her representative sons, or in her standards. And yet a primate of that Church, and while remaining within her communion, has recently and repeatedly appeared before the public with a studied and labored assault upon her cherished principles in this matter. I have no disposition to meddle with the polity of the Church referred to; but as the procedure to which we advert (as will be seen in the sequel) has given an undue advantage to Annihilationists, it is our duty to refer to the subject so far as is necessary in order to place the matter in its true light before the public. That Dr. Whately has a right to assail, if he chooses, these or any * “No article of any creed in Christendom is more universally or unhesitatingly held than that each individual enters, at death, upon an eternal state of retribution." (Bush on the Resurrection, p. 276.) 66 other doctrines whatever, no one will dispute; but that he either has or can have a right to enjoy the revenues of the Church, under the plea of receiving her doctrines, and under the pledge to defend them, while at the same time he is endeavoring to effect their subversion, every upright mind will most emphatically deny. The fact that others may have done the like before him, or that Paley's loose views of subscription might justify such a course, is (as his own Logic" will tell him) neither excuse nor extenuation for Dr. Whately. If some have done the same thing, others can be named also who, when they were led to depart from the doctrines of the Establishment, and upon far less important grounds, have honestly abandoned her communion. The senseless outcry may be raised that this is unfavorable to freedom of discussion, (for "freedom of discussion" has been made to father many such proceedings;) but the question relates not to free discussion, but to moral integrity. And such theologastricism ought to be banished from among men. Every book of the Annihilationists contains quotations. from, and laudations of, Dr. Whately; and just in proportion as his course herein is indefensible and humiliating, do they laud him as one whose candor and fearlessness of con sequences have gained the ascendant of all selfish considerations. And all this is made the basis for the most invidious insinuations against those who retain their principles and their integrity. In fact Dr. Whately has become their great authority. But to complete the portrait they have.drawn from imagination rather than from fact; for so far from the love of truth leading Dr. Whately to disregard consequences, he stands before the world self-convicted, as one who persisted in receiving and enjoying the revenues of at Church whose avowed faith he was confessedly endeavoring to subvert. Certainly it was scarcely to be expected that in this age the humiliating example of Archdeacon Black * See, for example, S. I-VI, and in other places; D. 90, 96, 189, 190; H. 1, p. 189; M, 19, 25; H. 2, p. 65, 96; and B. 31, 65, 66, 74. burne should find a counterpart among the dignitaries of the same Church.* I repeat the asseveration, that every man who lays claim to moral integrity ought to frown upon such a procedure. It is becoming of rather frequent occurrence; but the frequency can never divest the act of its odious character. The Socinians in Harvard might be named in illustration, and some recent cases also in the Presbyterian and other Churches. The same remarks apply also to the Rationalists in Germany, who likewise dipped their hand in the dish" with the Church of Christ, at the same time that they were seeking to blot out her very existence. How nobly do the examples of David. Simpson, Baptist W. Noel, and of thousands of others, contrast with that of such men? But we need not dwell upon the * Blackburne was author of the anonymous volume entitled, "Historical View of the Controversy concerning an Intermediate State," etc. London, 1772, (second edition;) a work from which the Annihilationists copy, as from a common stock, without acknowledgment; and throughout which the merest partisan appears, as usual, under the garb of an intolerant and proscriptive liberality, and with a fierce and almost ferocious zeal for moderation. Even the Socinians admit that his opposition to the doctrines of the Church of England, and his continuance in its connection, are "an anomaly not easily explained." See Collection of Essays, etc., by Dr. Jared Sparks, vol. i, p. 176. See also Robert Hall's views of such proceedings, in Works, ii, 320-323, 327; and Doddridge's, also, in the seventieth of his Lectures. + The following remark of Archbishop Magee (a predecessor of Dr. Whately in the See of Dublin) is well worth pondering in this connection: "It is indeed," says he, "scarcely conceivable how a person in possession of a sane understanding can reconcile to himself subscription to the Articles of the Church, and rejection of the doctrines which those articles define." Now that the survivance and continuous activity of the human spirit of Christ between his death and resurrection infers that of his members, will not be denied, (on this point see § 33, subsection 14, infra;) nor will it be denied that both the burial and descent of Christ into hades are expressly taught in the Thirty-nine Articles, and also throughout the book of Common Prayer. The phrase, “He descended into hell," is therein explained by the phrase, "He went into the place of departed spirits,;" and this very creed is not only repeated in the daily service, but committed and recited by every catechumen previous to confirmation by the bishop. It is, moreover, required to be repeated in "The Visitation of the Sick," and in the prayers offered on such occasions phrases like the following occur: "O Almighty God, with whom |