28. Another question of inference is that of the sleep of death. I should, upon the views here enunciated, infer from the New Testament that it is as true of Pneuma in our case as in the case of the great God, that it "slumbereth not nor sleepeth," for there is nothing to require sleep in Hades, the outer senses are cut away, there is no perception of material objects, no origin of ideas from outward material things, no bodily pulsation, nothing that causeth man to faint or grow weary. Those Scriptures which speak of death as a sleep must therefore refer to the absence of perception through loss of body and soul, not to the absence of self-consciousness. Spirit may see and hold converse with spirit, in the spiritual world, and for aught we can tell in this world also, though perhaps at such times only as those spirits, yet in the flesh, withdraw themselves, so to speak, from the material world and become absorbed in spiritual contemplation. Samuel was at first invisible to Saul, but the spirit of the witch saw him, and he saw the witch.

29. Another point of inference is one in regard to space and time. The view taken in this paper would lead to the inference that the idea of space and time does not enter into the consciousness of spirits in Hades. The clockwork of the material world is there not only never seen, but even the gauge which the moral or psychical affections supply, is wanting. There is therefore nothing so far as we can conceive to measure space or time with. Hence the dead, though conscious and active in the spirit-world, may find it true in their experience that a "thousand years are as one day," and that to them the coming of the Lord, ever represented in the New Testament as near, will literally appear to have been so when it shall happen, there being to each but the conscious lapse of the time spent here between the announcement and the event itself. Between death and the consummation I should infer that there is no conception of time. How far this may remove the difficulty which some have felt in regard to some words of S. Paul, about the Second Advent, will depend, perhaps, very much upon their ability to accept this inference as a valid one. To my own mind there is no difficulty in receiving S. Paul's words in their most literal acceptation.

30. These thoughts may serve as an illustration as to what I meant when I said that there are many inferences to be drawn from the pneumatology and psychology of the New Testament that go far to settle many deep and interesting questions which do not take their rise in Scripture interpretation so much as in the subjective views of persons themselves who discuss them. I will close with repeating a

statement made in my opening remarks, that the language of the New Testament, though penned in many of its parts by unlearned men, has yet a consistency and philosophical accuracy about it, that we do not find elsewhere, in regard to man's nature. The Fathers stand high with me as theologians and guardians of the faith, but in their use of the terms Pneuma and Psyche they fall much below the New Testament in point of consistency and accuracy. With us we have come to speak of man in a twofold sense, as having soul and body; and the common people would not very readily understand an accurate preacher or writer who should speak of the soul as mortal and perishable, yet as a matter of Scripture statement, I think, it

is so.

The CHAIRMAN.-This morning I received a letter from Mr. Gosse, one of our Vice-Presidents; it contains some brief comments upon Mr. English's paper, and, with your permission, I will read them :

"The Rev. W. W. English, in this Essay, appears to look on 'Spirit, Soul, and Body,' as three essential constituents of human nature. I venture to think, however, that the testimony of the New Testament is not in accordance with this opinion. Setting apart the multitudinous occurrences of the word veμa and its derivatives, which refer to the Third Person of the Blessed GODHEAD; those in which evil spirits are clearly meant; those which signify a moral condition or temper (as Rom. xi. 8; 2 Cor. xii. 18, &c.) ; and a few, in which the word seems to signify a dispensation or phase of the Divine economy (as 2 Cor. iii. 6, 8);—there remain many which manifestly glance at a constituent principle of man, so designated. But, in all these cases,* if carefully examined, it will be found, I think, that it is renewed man, converted man, man ‘passed from death unto life,' who is spoken of. It is plain, from the Divine testimony, that a godly man is not a man in the flesh, improved; for the flesh is incorrigible; it not only 'is not subject to the law of GoD'; but it cannot be' (Rom. viii. 7); he is a 'new creation, kan kriσiç' (2 Cor. v. 17). Now, what it is that is 'created anew,' when such a change occurs, is shown in that grand revelation, 1 Cor. xv., where alone in the Holy Scriptures the subject under consideration is at all technically treated. Here the body which true believers (and surely of no others is the Apostle speaking, in the whole argument) possess in the present mortal state, is called oŵμa Yvxiкòv,—a soulish body; and is contradistinguished from that body which they shall acquire at the last trump, which is called oõμa пveνμatiкòv,—a spiritual (or spiritish) body. The former is expressly said to be derived from Adam, who was made a living ʊxʼn ;

* In Luke viii. 55, where it is stated of the daughter of Jairus, that "her spirit (rò πvevμa avrйs) came again"; the word is perhaps equivalent to "breath."-P. H. G.

and is therefore the common inheritance of all men, as descended from him. The latter is as distinctly said to be derived from the Lord Christ, who was made a life-making veμa'; and is therefore peculiar to those who are federally united to Him; those who are 'in Christ.' But the whole tenour of the Apostle's argument shows that this respective origination is not only true of the two bodies,--the present corrupt, mortal, soulish, and the future immortal, glorious, spiritish ;*-but must be predicated of the subtile immaterial principle, which animates each of the two respectively. The true believer possesses both of these animating essences; for he is a compound, or, so to speak, a double entity. He still has the body and the soul which he derived from Adam; the former of which, certainly, the latter, probably (see, however, 1 Thess. v. 23), will end, either at death, or by change at the coming of the Lord ;-and he has the new principle of life, which is that of the risen Christ; for Christ . . . is our life' (Col. iii. 4); and 'he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit' (1 Cor. vi. 17). But of this latter life, we possess as yet only the spiritish moiety: the body proper to this heavenly nature we wait for. Our glorified Head possesses both: His body is risen, and 'is entered into His glory.' We possess the life, 'the spirit' now, in actual fruition and experience: the spiritish body we have not yet, except in sure reversion, and representatively, in Him our Head and Forerunner. It does not appear to me that the Holy Scripture ever attributes TVεuμа (in this distinctive sense) to an unrenewed, unconverted man. He is, and must be, yuxiròç äveρπоs; whereas the newcreated, though he may be σαρκικός, is yet πνευματικός,—πνευματικοῖς πνευ· μatikà ovykρivwv (that is, I think, not 'comparing spiritual things with spiritual' as in A.V., but 'discerning spiritual [things] by spiritual [senses or faculties]'). It is worthy of observation, that the struggling, sincere, but ever vanquished man, whom the Apostle personates in Rom. vii., and whom I believe to represent a legally enlightened and conscientious, but (up to ver. 25) unrenewed, man; speaks of vous, but not of πvevμa :—this appears not till the following chapter, when he can joyfully testify that the Spirit's law (of Life IN Christ Jesus) hath made him free' (viii. 2).

"P. H. GOSSE."

I propose that the thanks of this meeting be given to Mr. English for his interesting paper, and also to Mr. Gosse for the remarks which he has been kind enough to send. It is now open to any one present to make such observations as he may desire to offer.

Rev. C. A. Row.-I rise first, because the author of the paper gives me a distinct challenge; but I am challenged in good company, that of Dr. Irons, who, I regret, is not present. If Mr. English has read Dr. Irons's papers on Human Responsibility,' he will have seen that the matter is

* I beg indulgence for the coining of these terminants; no words in English use are available.-P. H. G.

there put beyond controversy. I am also sorry that Dr. Rigg is not here, for when I read my paper "On Dr. Newman's Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent," ," Dr. Rigg expressed himself in the discussion that followed even more strongly than I did; and I think it right to say that the article which I then alluded to-contained in the London Quarterly-one of the most important that has appeared on this subject, is from Dr. Rigg's own pen. Now the author of the present paper personally alludes to Dr. Irons and myself, and challenges us as holding opinions that tend to infidelity. I will read the passage :—

"The man who puts 'reason' for the basis of religion—'

I do not know that I have ever used that phrase.

"starts upon an incline whose bottom is infidelity. He cannot receive the doctrines of the Incarnation, the Resurrection, or the Ascension, with all that belongs to each, as any consequence following logically from his first principles; those first principles therefore must be false, if Christianity be true. I must here, I know, differ from some statements made by members of this Institute, particularly by Mr. Row, and I think Dr. Irons, on the subject of reason,' and I do so upon strictly philosophical grounds. Faith is not the product of reason, it has a closer affinity with what is psychological than with what is pneumatological. In any case it has not 'reason' for its basis. Reason gives us knowledge, not faith."

Now if that is a true statement, I am in a very unfortunate position; because, having been trying to defend Christianity all my life, it would follow that I had really been defending infidelity. There are certain points in Mr. English's paper which I apprehend Mr. Graham will discuss, indeed he has taken them up in a paper to be read here a month hence; therefore I will leave him to deal with them. There is but one section in the paper to which I can give my cordial assent, that is the third, and I must add one more illustration to it ;-I have been struck by an accommodation in the New Testament respecting the name of God; God is only once called the Lord of Hosts there, in a passage where St. James is referring to the Old Testament; but in the Revelation the phrase is altered from "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of Hosts," to "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty."

At the end of his 17th section, Mr. English has this

passage :

"The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground (his body), and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (spirit), and man became a living soul; that is, having Psyche, a bodily frame with life in it."

Now I cannot say it is fair to assert, that because the words are the Lord God formed man of the dust of the earth," that this means mere bodily organization, and that afterwards came the breath of life, and by the act of the union man became a living soul. As to the passage in

* Vol. vi. p. 45.

St. Paul in which the division of man is supposed to be made into the three principles of spirit and soul and body, the question arises, did the writers of the New Testament use scientific language on this subject? I have examined the New Testament, and I am happy to say that Mr. Graham agrees with me in thinking that on this subject they did not use scientific language; and I do not see how it was possible for them to have done so without a great deal of previous definition: they use the common language of the Hellenic Jewish race. Take the English language as an example, and the distinction which Coleridge draws between understanding and reason; the only way of using these terms scientifically is by using definitions; because, as used in common English they have a very wide meaning. So it is with the Greek New Testament. But Mr. Graham will take up this point in the paper which he is to read here, therefore I will not occupy your time upon this part of the subject any longer, but will at once proceed to a point on which I feel more especially called to give an opinion. Let us turn to the 18th and 20th sections of the paper, which I own to have read with the most profound astonishment. In the first of these, Mr. English says:—

"The spirit (Pneuma) comprises the directing, self-conscious principle, the ego, that which constitutes man's real personality. The flesh lusting against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh,' is the Pneuma in its renewed state, struggling with old habits of the body, become so powerful as to be almost a law unto themselves."

I shall not argue whether Mr. English is right about Pneuma and Psyche, but will assume his principles, and proceed to show that they do not carry out his theory. It is very difficult, after Mr. English has evaporated all the various parts which we usually think belong to the Pneuma, to make out what is left; but here I read that the personality, or the ego, is found in the Pneuma. Then he goes on to say :

"Pneuma, therefore, comprises not only will and self-consciousness, but discernment, reason, and I may add also speech (logos).”

That is a most curious account of what he conceives to be the Pneuma. But what is the consequence of it? Mr. English seems to think that the personality, and what we call the intellect, or understanding, are the chief constituents in what forms the Pneuma in man, and, I apprehend, of the Pneuma of angels, and of God also, for that seems to me to be a necessary consequence from all these assertions. Then I should observe that so far as language respecting the human mind is concerned, there are several other terms used in the New Testament of equal importance; vous, for instance, is used very strongly in an ethical sense in the New Testament; and κapdía,

* Dr. Harold Browne says: "All animals have the body, all the living soul (Gen. i. 20, 21), but the breath of life, breathed into the nostrils by God himself, is said of man alone. Cp. 'the body, soul, and spirit' of ancient philosophy and of the apostle Paul.”—ED.