He did edge of it would be essentially beneficial. not inculcate the immortality of the soul, except so far as immortality might be inferred from its continued existence after leaving the body. But, as will be seen in the sequel, he does very plainly assume that mind, or spirit, does not die, when its connection with the physical frame is dissolved. Several considerations from "Moses and the prophets" may be brought to show that there is something in man, soul or spirit, which lives beyond the dissolution of the body. 1. The idea is inculcated in all those passages which speak of the dead as "going to their fathers," as sleeping with their fathers," &c. The ancient Hebrews regarded life as a journey, or a pilgrimage, which terminated at death; when the sojourner entered into the company of his ancestors.† Hence it is said of Ishmael, that having lived an hundred and thirty-seven years, "he gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered to his fathers." (Gen. 25: 17.) Abraham, also, "gave up the ghost and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people." (Gen. 25: 8.) Of a similar import is the language used in reference to Isaac's death: "He gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered to his people, being old and full of days. And Esau and Jacob buried him." (Gen. 35: 29.) Concerning Rachel, the language is peculiar: “And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for Hengstenberg's Christ., vol. 1, p. 35. Warburton, Divine Legation, book vi., § 5. Jahn, Bib. Archæology, § 203. she died,) that she called his name Benoni." (Gen. 35: 18.) In all these passages, there is an evident intention to convey the idea that some sort of essence, or being, existing in the body, was departing from it; and yet that it lived, after its departure, to be gathered to the assembly of those who had gone before it. This being is not the body, and not the breath of life. It is that which constitutes personal identity that to which the pronouns, I, thou, me, he, self, and others, are appropriately applied. It may, indeed, be said that the expressions, in passages above mentioned, are poetic figures, designed to convey the idea of natural death, without intimating anything beyond. This explanation would be satisfactory, if there had been no previous conviction of the continued existence of the soul after leaving the body. But with such a belief, which the patriarchs unquestionably entertained, in common with the Jews generally, the language could not be used without conveying the idea of spirit, or something else, departing from its temple, and still existing in a conscious state after death. Indeed, the imagery was evidently borrowed from the current belief of the age- a belief, which Moses, so far from condemning, has, in its essential features, virtually approved. It is not to be supposed that being "gathered to their fathers," denotes a particular ancestral burialplace. When the promise was made to Abraham, "Thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age," (Gen. 15: 15,) it was not certainly intended that his body should be laid by the graves of his ancestors; for he was buried in a cave near the plain of Mamre, at the south of Hebron. But his fathers lived, and died, and were buried, in the extensive country of the Chaldeans, beyond the Euphrates. The meaning of the promise, then, is that he should be gathered to the vast congregation of his departed ancestors, who were conceived of as yet alive and conscious of their condition. "When per sons are said to go to their fathers, and go down to their children who were dead, nothing more seems to be meant than that they had gone to Sheol or Hades, where all the dead are represented as one vast congregation."* With these prevailing opinions, the Jews must, of necessity, conceive of that congregation as living in their unearthly state. The phraseology used with reference to it, was directly calculated to confirm the conviction of a conscious existence of human spirits beyond this life. The figure of a sleep, made use of to denote death, would naturally add further confirmation of the prevailing belief. "The Lord said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers." (Deut. 31: 16.) And the death of several kings of Israel is recorded in the simple but pathetic language, "He slept with his fathers." Sometimes the expression is varied by adding, "And they buried him in the city of David," or, "He was buried with his fathers, in the city of David." This, it will be admitted, is a beautiful * Balfour's Essays, p. 15. . See 1 Kings, 2: 10; 11: 21, 43; 14: 20, 31; 15: 8, 24; 2 Kings, 8:24; 13: 9; 15: 7; 2 Chron. 27:9; 32: 33; 28: 27; 33: 20. figure to express a naturally repulsive and gloomy fact. It conveys the idea of rest and peacefulness, and at the same time indicates a continued existence. The being who sleeps is not wholly dead, but reposing in slumber, from which he shall again awake. The language, then, was calculated to strengthen the conviction that mind, or person, or the being who thinks, was not annihilated at death; that, though he slept or rested in the land of darkness and forgetfulness ; though he was gathered to the assembly of the dwellers in Sheol; yet he was still capable of thought and perception, of sympathy and affection. There was a degree of tenderness associated with this conviction, that rendered it the more pleasant and permanent. And perhaps it was strengthened by the impossibility of conceiving of beings annihilated. No man can conceive of himself as non-existent. When he makes the attempt, he invariably conceives of a being existing; and he vainly endeavors to associate, with this conception, the idea of absolute nothingness, and to include himself, or any other being, in that idea. He remembers his friends who have died; but the remembrance always includes the idea of living beings, either active or at rest. He conceives of them as they were when alive; and he cannot bring his thoughts down to the present, and conceive of them as gone, without carrying along with that conception the idea of their existence. The memories of the past necessarily embrace and convey to the present the living images of beings then existing and acting. It is this circumstance, perhaps, more than any thing else, which has strengthened the conviction that the dead are not annihilated; but, though taken from us, that they still exist, in some mysterious region beyond the grave. 2. The Jewish views of Sheol, and the scriptural references to that subject, afford further evidence of an intention of the sacred writers to recognize the existence of the spirit after leaving the body. It cannot be questioned that Sheol, in the Old Testament, primarily denotes a dim region beneath the face of the earth a world for the dead in general, without reference to their moral qualities, their happiness or misery. The uniform testimony of ancient and modern savans has fully established this as the meaning of the word.* It is derived from a root, (shaal,) which has "the import of craving, requiring, insatiable longing, from its being one of the four things which, Solomon says, are never satisfied." It is translated. grave, pit, and hell; but there is as wide a departure from the truth on the one hand, in assuming that it denotes merely the resting-place of the body, "exclusively the grave or place of burial,' as there is, on the other, in maintaining that it denotes a state of punishment beyond this life. It was doubtless designed to express the rendezvous of the dead a sort of underworld, where the spirits, or attenuated forms and shadowy images of the departed, were congregated in - * See Stuart's Essays, p. 98; Campbell's Four Gospels, vol. 1, p. 180; Balfour, First Inquiry, chap. 1. + Bush, Notes on Genesis, 37: 35. Universalist Quarterly, vol. 1, p. 367. |