"Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them in the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you who shall give account to him who is ready to judge the quick and the dead. For unto this end was the gospel" (margin, the good tidings) "preached even to the dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit." (1 Peter iv. 4—6.)

As this passage conflicts with numerous systems of theology, various have been the attempts to fix on it a meaning other than its natural one. Into the discussion of these I shall enter in a subsequent chapter, when I consider whether there is reason for believing that human probation will be extended beyond the grave; but for my present purpose I shall assume that the reader who comes to its perusal unfettered by systems, will arrive at the conclusion that, read in its natural sense, it makes the following affirmations :—

1st. That Christ, after he expired on the cross, passed into the underworld, and there preached to the antediluvians. 2nd. That he there announced good tidings even to the dead.

3rd. That in St. Peter's opinion the conscious personality survived in Hades in such a condition that those who had passed into it were capable of understanding the good news that our Lord announced, and that they were therefore in possession of their intellectual and moral consciousness.

6. The author of the Book of Revelation thus writes :"I saw under the altar the souls of them that had been slain for the word of God, and for the testimony that they held; and they cried with a great voice, saying, How long, O Master, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth. And there was given unto them to each one a white robe; and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little while, until

their fellow servants also and their brethren, which should be killed even as they were, should be fulfilled." (Rev. vi. 9-11.)

This book is a book of symbols, and to this the passage above cited evidently forms no exception, inasmuch as it speaks of bestowing white robes on the souls (vxàs) which the seer in vision saw under the altar. Yet it is certain that the imagery is founded on the assumption that after the death of their bodies these souls retained their conscious personality, in which they were capable of looking back on the past and forward on the future, and addressing prayers, and even remonstrances to Him whom they address as Master (CεσTÓτηs, i.e. Lord in its highest sense). This passage also is conclusive against the theory of those who affirm that in the Greek of the New Testament the word yox (soul) does not carry with it the idea of the conscious personality, but only of that life which is extinguished at death. On the language of the New Testament and its alleged psychology, we shall have more to say hereafter.

Also

And I heard a voice from heaven saying, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, for their works follow with them." (Rev. xiv. 13.)

This passage simply affirms that the dead who die in the Lord are happy from the time specified and forward, in a state of rest from their earthly labours. But happiness is impossible without the possession of personal consciousness. It adds that "their works follow them," i.e. that their works wrought here follow them in the results which they will exert cn their condition of happy rest in the unseen world.

These six passages contain all the information which is furnished by the New Testament respecting the condition of man between death and the resurrection. This silence, to

whatever cause it may be owing, is most remarkable, for we all eagerly desire to penetrate into the secrets of the unseen world. Still, beyond the facts that we shall continue to exist as personal beings, that our conduct here will affect our condition there, and that the saints will enjoy a blissful rest from their labours in the presence of Christ, with the one single exception of 1 Peter iii., this silence is unbroken. Yet this silence of the sacred writers could not have been owing to the want of the means of getting information, for St. John's Gospel not only narrates the resurrection of Lazarus after he had been dead four days, but it informs us that at a supper given to our Lord some weeks afterwards, at which several guests were present, of whom the narrative implies that the Apostles were among the number, Lazarus was one of those that sat at the table with Him. Did none of his friends during this interval, or did none of the Apostles, while they were sitting at the table with him, ask him about his experiences in the unseen world? It is incredible, but that numerous questions must have been put to him respecting his condition when absent from the body. Similar opportunities of attaining information on a subject so profoundly interesting must have been possessed by those who conversed with Dorcas, who, between her death and resurrection, must have passed some days in Hades. Yet with the exception of the above passages, respecting the secrets of the unseen world the sacred writers are profoundly silent.

Nor is reason capable of throwing any additional light on this subject. The cause of this is obvious, for we have no data on which to reason. Thus while we know that we are personal beings, we are ignorant as to what constitutes per

The contrast between the silence of the writers of the New Testament respecting the unseen world, and the minute descriptions given of it in the Koran, is very striking. Writers of fiction would most assuredly have had much to say respecting the condition of the departed.

sonality. We know that we are beings possessed of consciousness and free agency; but what consciousness and free agency are in themselves we know nothing. We know that there is a most intimate connection between our conscious personality and our bodily organism, and that they mutually act and re-act on one another; but how the former exists when separated from the latter, whether it is capable of holding any communication with the universe outside ourselves; how the motions of the one are translated into the sensations and thoughts of the other; or what a being who is capable of consciousness and thought is in itself, as distinguished from one which is incapable of either, no effort of our mental powers is able to discover. This being so, in the silence alike of reason and revelation, every theory which has been propounded on this subject rests on no certain or trustworthy foundation. Nor does the supposed psychology of the New Testament furnish us with any data through which, by any exertion of our reasoning powers, we can penetrate into the secrets of the unseen world.

We now come to the most striking position of the New Testament on this subject, viz. its promise of a bodily resurrection as the consummation of the highest hopes and aspirations of man. I understand this promise to mean that a time is coming in the future when the human personality, which has been separated by death from that bodily framework through which alone during its existence here its activities were capable of being manifested, will receive a material organism of a different order and character, which in the case of the holy will be fitted for the exercise of the higher, i.e. the rational, spiritual, and moral activities of man, and in which the lower or animal propensities will become extinct. With respect to the wicked, although it affirms their resurrection, it is silent as to the nature of their bodily environment. The striking fact is that it is to a

N

resurrection and to a judgment following it, as distinct from a condition of happiness or misery of the personality in the underworld, that the hopes of saints and the fears of sinners are uniformly directed by the writers of the New Testament. Of its numerous utterances on this subject, I quote the following as examples :—

Marvel not at this; for the hour cometh, in which all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done ill unto the resurrection of judgment." (John v. 28, 29.)

"For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels, and then shall he render to every man according to his deeds." (Matt. xvi. 27.)

"For we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that fall asleep, that ye sorrow not even as the rest that have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them that are fallen asleep in Jesus shall God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, and are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we that are alive and are left shall together with them be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." (1 Thess. iv. 13-18.)

"For our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto himself." (Phil. iii. 20, 21.)