Theological Considerations. 1007 



world, and by the modern spiritualists. Of late years it has crept into 

 the church, and the whole body of Christians have become inoculated 

 with it, and they seem to have become half ashamed of the doctrine of 

 the resurrection of the body, as grotesque, crude, uncanny, and absurd, 

 and of lacking in esthetic, attractive, and desirable qualities. 



Many of us can remember when sermons on the resurrection of the 

 dead, pictured the dead bodies coming out of the earth and the sea, 

 where they were buried, and the fragments of dismembered bodies fry- 

 ing through the air to meet each other; the soldier's leg from one dis- 

 tant battle field where he left it, and his arm from another, &c. The 

 bible does not teach the resurrection of the soul, but of the body. St. 

 Paul calls it a spiritual body, but still a body. ' ' We that remain shall 

 be changed, and the dead shall be raised," said he. Enoch, Elijah, and 

 Jesus are said to have ascended to heaven, whole, not leaving their 

 bodies behind. The creed says, ' < I belive in the resurrection of the 

 body. " Not the continued life of the soul, and permanent death of 

 the body. 



That the resurrection cannot be proved scientificalty is nothing against 

 it from the bible standpoint. Revelation is addressed to faith, not 

 reason. There is no faith, and no religious merit in believing a thing 

 that can be proved by sufficient secular testimony, or scientific demon- 

 stration; any infidel can believe that way. Tertullian showed the true 

 spirit of faith in the declaration, " Credo quia impossibile est. " He 

 also had the true conception of the soul, denying the doctrine of its im- 

 materiality and incorporeality. See Lecky, Rationalism, 1-342. 



The discoveries of modern science have, without doubt, had a great 

 effect in modifying the views of Christians, especially Protestants. 

 There has been a disposition to make the doctrines of the church con- 

 form to science, and the creeds, or at least private views, have been con- 

 strained to assimilate science and revelation into a harmonious system, 

 in oblivion of the obvious fact that there can be neither harmony nor 

 inharmony between two things which cannot possibly be brought into 

 comparison or relationship with each other. The real inquiry for Chris- 

 tians to make is, what are the doctrines that have been revealed. Hav- 

 ing ascertained these, an attempt to prove them true and scientific is 

 equivalent to a denial of them as revelations. A revelation that can be 

 proved is no revelation at all, but a science. If the doctrine of the 

 resurrection is a revelation from the Almighty, then the dead will be 

 raised with their bodies, which of course includes their brains and ner- 

 vous systems with all the powers and faculties thereby implied, and thus 

 the aspiration for life beyond the grave be realized. If Christians will 

 stick to this faith without attempting to turn it into knowledge, the sci- 

 entific probability that there is no organization of soul, separate from 



