Section I.

An Argument Founded Upon the Immateriality of the Soul, and its Conscious Existence Between Death and the Resurrection.

We proceed with our argument upon the supposition that two points have been proved, viz: first, that the soul is an immaterial spirit, which is not matter, and which forms no part of what is usually called the body; and, secondly, that it exists without the body from death to the resurrection. If these two points have not been proved, we have no hope of sustaining the present proposition, upon the principle that nothing can be proved; for we have made them as plain and certain as we can hope to make any scriptural doctrine. To our own mind the doctrine of the fall, the death of Christ for the redemption of sinners, the resurrection of the body, and a general judgment, cannot be made more certain. Alter the extended arguments that have been offered on these points, we will proceed to inquire into the bearing which the have upon the present question.

1. It fellows that the soul is net mortal in its own nature, tending to dissolution by tile action of the elemental laws of its being. The body will, by the operations of its own elemental laws, come to maturity, decay and die; but such cannot be the case with the soul, from what has already been proved. If the soul be an immaterial spirit it will not grow old, decay and die of itself. Again, as it has been proved that the soul survives the death of the body, and lives in a separate state for thousands of years, the argument is pretty conclusive that it will never die, unless God, its Maker, withdraw from it his creative and upholding power which gave it being.

2. It follows, from what has been proved, that the soul cannot be annihilated by those agencies which destroy the body, and to which allusion is made in the Scriptures, in describing the punishment of the wicked. Those who contend that the wicked will be annihilated, rely upon those Scriptures to prove the point, which affirm that the wicked shall be burned up, but tins cannot be their meaning. If the soul is immaterial it cannot be burned up by such fire as consumes the body. Moreover, some of the martyrs were burned up; that is, their bodies were burned to ashes, the ashes scattered upon the waters, and yet these martyrs were not annihilated; their souls still exist, and will continue to exist in the intermediate state until the general resurrection. This has been proved, and from it it follows that the soul cannot be burned up, in the sense of ceasing to exist.

3. From what has been proved, it follows that the soul will exist forever, unless it can be shown that God will destroy it by some means or some agency of which we have yet no knowledge. The effect of this on the main argument is this; it throws the burden of proof, on those who deny the immortality of the soul and maintain that it will cease to exist after the resurrection. We have proved that it is immortal in its own nature, that it will never die of itself, and hence that it must exist forever, unless it can be proved that God will annihilate it, that is, cause it to cease to exist. Here we might rest our argument, and call for the proof that God will annihilate the wicked, at, or subsequently to, the resurrection. The most natural conclusion from the premises is, that the soul will exist forever. But we will not stop at this point, but will proceed to prove by additional arguments, what is so clearly a consequence of the positions already sustained, after which we will review the arguments by which annihilationists attempt to support their doctrine.