the Old Testament assume that men are in some way or other to live after death. Even in the Pentateuch this is taken for granted. It is not taught, but assumed as a self-evident truth, immanent in the consciousness of the people." x
6. It is to be remembered that we have in the New Testament an inspired, and, therefore, an infallible commentary on the Old Testament Scriptures. From that commentary we learn that the Old Testament contains much which otherwise we should never have discovered. Not only is the compass of the truths revealed to the fathers shown to be far greater than the simple words would suggest, but truths are declared to be therein taught, which, without divine assistance, we could not have discovered. There is another thing concerning the faith of the Old Testament saints to be taken into consideration. They may have understood, and probably did understand their Scriptures far better than we are disposed to think possible. They had the advantage of the con- stant presence of inspired men to lead them in their interpreta- tion of the written word, and they enjoyed the inward teaching of the Holy Spirit. What that spiritual illumination availed in their case, we cannot tell ; but we know that now the humble Christian who submits himself to the teachings of the Spirit, un- derstands the Bible far better than any mere verbal critic.
We have then in the New Testament the most explicit dec- larations, not only that the doctrine of a future state was revealed in the Old Testament, but that from the beginning it was part of the faith of the people of God. Our Lord in refuting the Sadducees, who denied not only the resurrection of the body, but also the conscious existence of man after death, and the existence of any merely spiritual beings, appeals to the fact that in the Pentateuch, the authority of which the Sadducees admitted, God is familiarly called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; but as He is the God not of the dead but of the living, the designa- tion referred to proves that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are now living, and living too in the fellowship and enjoyment of God. " Christ," says Mr. Alger, whom we quote the rather because he belongs to the class of men who call themselves liberal Chris- tians,2 " Christ once reasoned with the Sadducees ■ as touching
1 Die Voraussetzungen der christlichen Lehre von der Unsterblichkeit dargesteUt von Hermann Schultz, Dr. der Philosophie, Licent. der Theologie, etc., Gottingen, 1861, p. 207.
2 On page 438, he says: "The essence of rationalism is the affirmation that neither the fathers, nor the Church, nor the Scriptures, nor all of them together, can rightfully estab- lish any proposition opposed to the logic of sound philosophy, the principles of reason, and
720 FART IV. Cu. 1. — STATE OF SOUL AFTER DEATH
the dead, that they rise ;' in other words, that the souls of men upon the decease of the body pass into another and an unend- ing state of existence : — 4 Neither can they die any more ; for they are equal with the angels, and are the children of God, being children of the resurrection.' His argument was, that God is the God of the living, not of the dead ; that is, the spiritual nature of man involves such a relationship with God as pledges his attributes to its perpetuity. The thought which supports this reasoning penetrates far into the soul and grasps the moral rela- tions between man and God. It is most interesting, viewed as the unqualified affirmation by Jesus, of the doctrine of a future life which shall be deathless." 1 The reasoning of Christ, however, is not only an affirmation of the truth of the doctrine of a future deathless life, but an affirmation also that that doc- trine is taught in the Old Testament. The words which He quotes are contained in the book of Exodus ; and those words, as explained by Him, teach the doctrine of the blessed and un- ending life of the righteous.
That the Jews when Christ came, universally, with the excep- tion of the sect of the Sadducees, believed in a future life, is be- yond dispute. The Jews at this period were divided into three sects : the Sadducees, who were materialistic skeptics, believing neither in the resurrection, nor in angels, nor in spirits ; the Es- senes, who were a philosophical and ascetic sect, believing that the souls of the just being freed at death from the prison of the body, rejoice and are borne aloft where a happy life forever is decreed to the virtuous ; but the wicked are assigned to eternal punishment in a dark cold place ; 2 and the Pharisees, who, as we know from the New Testament, believed in the resurrection of the body in the sense in which Paul believed that doctrine (Acts xxvi. 6), for he claimed in his controversy with the Sad-
the evident truth of nature. Around this thesis the battle has been fought and the victory won ; and it will stand with spreading favour as long as there are unenslaved and cultivated minds in the world. This position is, in logical necessity, and as a general thing in fact, that of the large though loosely-cohering body of believers known as ' Liberal Christians;' and it is tacitly held by still larger and evergrowing numbers nominally connected with sects that officially eschew it with horror." Mr. Alger doubtless considered this as simply a declaration of independence of human authority in matters of religion. To other, and perhaps to wiser men, it sounds like a declaration of independence of God, the infinite Reason; as an assertion that the Infinite God can teach him nothing; or, at least, that He cannot so authenticate his teachings as to render them authoritative. The men are to be pitied who have no better knowledge of the mysteries of the present and the future than is to be found in themselves.
1 Alger, ut supra, p. 340.
2 Josephus, De Bello Judaico, n. viii. 11; Works, edit. Leipzig, 1827, vol. v. pp. 215, Zld, [165.]