DR. McGUFFEY AND THE SOUL.
When we lectured some months since at the University of Virginia, we very emphatically denied that any such doctrine was taught in the Bible as that there existed in mortal man an essence capable of an independent and incorporeal existence after death, commonly styled “the immortal soul.” We affirmed, that though man consisted of “body, soul and spirit,” yet that these were when uncombined without personal entity; but that when we declared this it was not to be supposed that we affirm that there was no immortality for man, or that immortality was not taught in the Bible. What we maintained was this: that the scripture doctrine is incorruptibility of the body refashioned from its original dust, and thus organised, endowed with endless life—as it is written, “this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality,” or deathlessness: that this incorruptible life of body is a good thing, and an item of “the great recompense of the reward” promised only to the righteous; that it is to be sought after, and will be granted only to those who “seek for it” “by a patient continuance in well doing;” and that the righteous are those who believe the gospel of that Kingdom which the God of Heaven has promised to set up in the land covenanted to the fathers of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, and who obey it.
We were pleased to hear that not long after this doctrine was propounded to the students in full audience assembled. —“The Rev. W. H. McGuffey, D. D.,” one of the professors of the University, delivered to them certain lectures on “the immortality of the soul.” What he made of the subject we have no means of judging; it is probable, however, that he “handled it with marked ability;” though of this we are certain, that he must have proved himself markedly unable to demonstrate its truth from the word of God. It is not there, and the wisest advocates of the dogma admit that it is not a scripture revelation.
The Rev. Dr. McGuffey has recently visited this city, and delivered a lecture at the Athenaeum on this subject. We would have heard him had we received intimation of time and place sufficiently early. It happened otherwise, however; therefore we must content ourselves with presenting the reader with the following notice of the lecture from “The Times and Compiler.” The reporter says: —
“The Rev. Mr. McGuffey delivered his lecture on the Immortality of the Soul, Thursday night, to a crowded auditory of ladies and gentlemen. As we took no notes, we will not do the speaker the injustice of attempting a synopsis of his remarks. It is scarcely necessary to say that the subject was handled with marked ability. But with due deference to the reverend and learned gentleman, we must be permitted to express our doubts whether the discussion of the Immortality of the Soul, on natural evidence, is likely to be productive of much good. The christian religion is the rock upon which this sublime doctrine stands, and there we think it should be permitted to rest. Why impose upon our weak and erring faculties, the task of demonstrating this dark and intricate problem, when a messenger from above has solved it for us? We cannot help regarding it as a species of grave trifling for a christian philosopher of the nineteenth century to abandon, in the discussion of the topic, the high and impregnable ground of divine revelation and to wander darkling through the metaphysical mazes which 2000 years ago perplexed the subtle disputants of the Portico and Academy.”
From this it would appear that “the reverend and learned gentleman” rested his argument in favour of the tradition “on natural evidence,” without appealing to divine revelation at all. In adopting this course the “crowded auditory of ladies and gentlemen” were enabled to mark well his ability as “a christian philosopher!” But after all the philosophy exhibited, the reporter cannot help saying that the whole affair was “a species of grave trifling.” This was doubtless the case. Only look at it! A crowded auditory gravely, perhaps proudly, listening to a reverend and learned professor of an University, and an ordained interpreter of Moses and the prophets, of Christ and his apostles, wandering darkly through the heathen mazes of 2000 years ago, to prove the existence of a nonentity! But, the wisdom of the Egyptians to the contrary nevertheless, there is no natural evidence of the verity of immortal-soulism. “The flesh profiteth nothing”—“in the flesh dwelleth no good thing.” The reverend and learned gentlemen ought to know this; and to know also, that the immortality of man is a truth peculiar to the gospel of the kingdom, covenanted to Abraham and David, and to all who shall constitute their seed in Christ, —a truth, specially revealed and attested, unsustained by a particle of natural evidence, but shining forth abundantly from Genesis to the Apocalypse, and visible to every one that is not blinded by a spurious “christian philosophy,” college divinity, and the subtleties of the old heathens. The reporter seems not at all to like “the reverend and learned gentleman’s desertion of divine revelation for natural evidence in the case. But he should remember that learned divines know least of revelation than of any other subject. They are weak there, but think themselves strong in “philosophy”—Colossians 2: 2, 8, because this is their chief study. They are not workmen that need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. They feel conscious of this, and, therefore, deal more in philosophy, such as it is, than in the scripture. Dealing in this wise is more taking with ladies and gentlemen who are too polite and well bred to be ravished with the homeliness of scripture truth. —“The reverend and learned gentleman” (we wonder, if we may be so vulgar, whether Paul was ever so styled by his contemporaries,) is too well instructed in the rules of decorum to seek any other evidence for immortal-soulism than the natural, in the presence of a fashionable auditory. It would have created a panic to have introduced an apostle saying, that “life and incorruptibility were brought to light by Jesus Christ in the gospel!”—1 Timothy 1: 10. —This would have upset all the natural evidence, and the Egyptian wisdom, and the Greek subtleties, and made the learned gentleman to look foolish, and all the ladies and gentlemen to faint when they found that immortality was an affair of gospel, and not a matter of flesh, and consequently that immortally they had “no pre-eminence over the beasts!”—Ecclesiastes 3: 19. The reporter thinks it a dark and intricate problem to demonstrate, although the messenger from above has solved it! Yes, he has brought it to light, so that it is no longer “dark and intricate.” The true doctrine is easily demonstrated. It shines like the sun from the sacred page, but gives no light to him who knows not the gospel of the kingdom, and is indoctrinated with the Egyptian superstition of “the immortality of the soul.”
EDITOR.
February 21, 1852.
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“Prove all things, and hold fast that which is good.”—Paul.
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