have no existence after death? Most certainly not. The text just quoted has reference simply to living again on the earth-to rising into this mode of being.

So the Psalmist asks, "Shall the dead arise and praise thee"? the implied answer to which is, No, by no means. Yet we should by no means understand the writer as denying the rising of the dead in the Christian sense. He was evidently speak ing of arising, that is, of getting up from a reclining posture, to join in the worship of God here on earth. Compare a passage from the prophet in which it is said, "The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: " &c. 1

But to return to the text from Ecclesiastes, "The dead know not any thing." Though the expression, "the dead" has reference commonly to persons, considered as spiritual beings, I am fully convinced that here, as in a few other places, it refers to the visible dead; and that its sense is, Dead bodies are destitute of knowledge. That it has no reference to aught beyond this mode of being, is apparent from several considerations:

1. The passage of which this noted text forms a part, closes thus: "Neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun." This language unmistakably relates to matters and things in the present mode of being.

2. In the context, a few verses previous to the text under consideration, "the business that it done upon the earth" is expressly mentioned.

3. Immediately succeeding the text, occurs the following: "Neither have they any more a reward: for the memory of them is forgotten." Forgotten by whom? If by persons in this state

'Ps. lxxxviii. 10; Isa. xxxviii. 18--20.

of being, then the absence of reward belongs to this state of being; for our forgetfulness of the dead, or of their deserts, is no reason for the absence of reward in an hereafter state. The passage, then, can not consistently be interpreted as expressive of the condition of the departed in an other life, unless we adopt the monstrous conclusion that the spirits of such, (or perhaps the doings of such,) are forgotten by HIM from Whom their spirits proceeded, and to Whom, as even the preacher assures us, they are destined at length to return.1

4. As a further proof that the reference of the passage is to the present mode of being, observe that a few verses after it, the Preacher holds forth thus: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." It is well-nigh indisputable that, in this place, the preacher is exhorting to diligence in the ordinary business of life. He accordingly adds, as an incentive to diligence, " for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest."2 As if he had said that the common laborer, the mechanic, the professional man, and the philosopher, all cease their accustomed pursuits at death.

The passage embracing the text in question, reads thus:

"For to him who is joined to all the living, there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward: fcr the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, are now perished, neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun." Eccl. ix. 4-7.

The sense of the above, (omitting one clause,) I take to be substantially as follows:

As long as a man has life, there is hope of his being in some way useful; for as a dog that is alive is better than a lion that is dead, so the most insignificant of our race, if living, is of more real importance in the world than the lifeless body of even the greatest monarch. For any live man knows enough to know that he shall die; but a corpse knows nothing; neither are such the subjects of recompense ***. Also, the likes, and the dislikes, and the other emotions common to men, they are destitute of; neither have they any part, or interest, in any worldly business whatever.

In perfect accordance with the above interpretation, is the declaration, "Neither have they any more a reward." The word "reward," in the Scriptures, has the sense of "recompense," being applied to punishments, as well as to rewards, in the modern sense of the term. "Woe to the wicked!" says the prophet, "it shall be ill with him for the reward of his hands shall be given him." 1 Rewards, in at least this sense, are often inflicted upon the bodies of transgressors; but rarely upon dead bodies. In regard to such inflictions, it is, in general, as if a dead man's deeds were forgotten. So, also, as to their having no more any part or portion in what is "done under the sun." The bodies of men, while alive, have a great deal to do with such doings; but this all ceases at death. Solomon is set forth in the Scriptures as having been an exceedingly wise man, but he is not therein recognized as a prophet. He was unquestionably a philosopher, but certainly was not an apostle. It therefore seems quite unlikely that he should have undertaken to describe the condition of departed spirits. And if he really

3 Isaiah iii. 11,

did attempt this in the passage we have been considering, and especially if he was divinely inspired so to do, is it not passing strange that his teachings on the subject are not quoted nor alluded to in all the Christian Scriptures, and that neither Jesus Christ, nor his apostles, ever put forth any thing resembling such teachings?

It may now be asked, Do we not read in the Scriptures of persons' falling asleep, sleeping, and being asleep, when the meaning is that they died, or were dead? Certainly. Yet this fact, so far from supporting the doctrine under examination, goes directly to subvert it. Such expressions relate solely to the death of the body. See chap. ii.

No where, in the Scriptures, do we read that the souls or spirits of the dead either sleep or die, in even a figurative sense. It is the spirits of those in the flesh who are liable to get into this condition: "Awake, thou who sleepest," says the Scripture, "and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." 1

In one place we indeed learn that when the Lord Jesus shall himself descend from heaven, those "who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." 2 This may seem to teach that at the time of their descent, the spirits of such persons will be asleep. Common sense, however, most clearly teaches that this could not well be the case; and it is proper to know that the passage, literally rendered, teaches not that they will then "sleep," or be "asleep," but simply that they will have "fallen asleep," that is, will have died. See last chapter of this work.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE RESURRECTION OF THE EARTHLY BODY.

It has been a commonly received doctrine in the Christian Church for many centuries, believed and advocated by very many great and good men, that the Christian resurrection is specifically the reuniting of soul and body. It is held that the very same bodies we inhabit here are to be forthcoming at the resurrection; though it is also held that these same bodies will then be "spiritual." The popular idea is, that the body is to rise entire from the grave; (as though every body had been buried;) the learned view of the case, is that the bodies we shall take on at the resurrection are to be formed out of the very same atoms of matter which now constitute our present ones.

99

The re-union of the souls and bodies of all the dead at the sounding of the archangel's trumpet, has been a somewhat fruithful theme of pulpit declamation. In "The Columbian Orator," a School Book of half a century ago, occurs on pp. 98, a fine specimen of this sort of rhapsodizing, partly after the declaimer's own imaginings, partly in prose imitation of a celebrated poet, and partly in the poet's own words. Thus, after speaking of the archangel's utterance as being "a summons not only to dead bodies to rise, but to the souls that once animated them, to appear and to be re