THE SAME SPAN OF TIME
––
The Major Works of
Thomas Cooper, M.D.
Published by Cassius Amicus.
Copyright 2011 Cassius Amicus
This ebook may be copied, distributed, reposted, reprinted and shared, provided it appears in its entirety without alteration, and the reader is not charged to access it.
ISBN: 978-1-4580-0881-7
Smashwords Edition 02.27.11
For additional information, see www.NewEpicurean.com.
The Major Works of
Thomas Cooper, M.D.
“The same span of time includes both the beginning and the termination of the greatest good.”
Epicurus, Vatican Saying 42, as translated by Norman DeWitt
… I cannot help exclaiming with Lucretius, “Tantum haec religio potuit suadere malorum.”
Thomas Cooper, letter to Thomas Jefferson, October 18, 1822.
Table of Contents
Introduction by Cassius Amicus
The Scripture Doctrine of Materialism
Letter of Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, December 11, 1823
A View of the Metaphysical and Physiological Arguments in Favor of Materialism
Letter of Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, March 29, 1824
Letter of Thomas Cooper To Thomas Jefferson, October 18, 1822
Introduction by Cassius Amicus
Of all the Principal Doctrines which the ancient Epicureans held to be crucial for living life happily, two ranked above all the rest:
1. Any perfect being has no trouble of its own, nor does it cause trouble to anyone else; and such a being has no emotions of anger or gratitude, as those emotions exist only in beings that are weak;
2. Death is nothing to us, because that which is dead has no sensations, and that which cannot be sensed is nothing to us.
These Doctrines have far-reaching application, but their most immediate effect is to explode all common religious superstitions at their root: If these doctrines are true, the affairs of men are not controlled by supernatural gods, and men do not possess immortal souls whom the priests may threaten with the punishment of the gods – or reward after death – for their worldly actions.
For two thousand years these two Doctrines have been the special target of all who fought to suppress the ideas of Epicurus, and in the main those efforts have largely prevailed. Even though priests have offered no proof for their claims, few men have been willing to stand publicly against the false threat of eternal punishment in hell and the false promise of eternal reward in heaven. Even in our modern world, those who reject the superstitions of ages past cling to the hope of some kind of life after death or find the thought that their consciousness ends at death too horrible to contemplate. Not every man, however, has stood aside from challenging these false promises and threats. This volume contains the major works of one such man.
Thomas Cooper was born in Westminster, England, in 1759. Educated at (but not graduated from) Oxford, he pursued a multi-tracked career in law, medicine, and education, but his real interest was clearly philosophic and political reform. Cooper traveled to Europe to participate in the French Revolution, and then, in 1794, migrated to the United States with his friend Joseph Priestley, who is credited with the discovery of oxygen. Throughout his life, Cooper fought the forces of political and religious oppression, and in the process he befriended Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and many other luminaries of the period.
Although he was well known in his day, memory of Cooper has largely faded from common view. One place, ironically, where his name evokes a glint of recognition is within the confines of the University of South Carolina, where he served as that institution’s second president (from 1821 to 1834) and where the school’s library is named for him today. It was during those years that the forces of religious oppression that had dogged Cooper throughout his adult life engaged his most direct attention. In the end, those forces obtained his removal as president of the university, but during his stay in Columbia Cooper found new fame in political affairs – as an eloquent opponent of the growing power of the federal government. This fame allowed him to remain active through the end of his life, and during that time he published (or in some cases republished) the works collected here. The writing collected here will endure to Cooper’s everlasting credit – and will be remembered far longer than his religious enemies, who Thomas Jefferson aptly described as “conjurers.”
Unlike Jefferson, Cooper never claimed – at least in any writing preserved today – to be an Epicurean himself, but most of his most memorable writing was devoted (or conformable) to the ideas first popularized by Epicurus almost two thousand years before – especially in his first two Doctrines.1 Cooper’s most significant articles on these subjects are preserved here in this volume.
The first section of this volume is devoted to Cooper’s The Scripture Doctrine of Materialism. The meaning of the word “materialism” today is muddied at best, and certainly conveys a negative aura in the minds of most people. In Cooper’s time, however, to call oneself a materialist was to state very specifically and clearly that one believed that man’s soul (or consciousness) is a property of “matter”, and did not exist outside or apart from the material of the human body. The important observation to make first in this regard is that those who held Cooper’s view did not purport to be able to explain the detail of the type of matter of which the soul consists. Rather, their point was that in whatever form it exists, it is natural, and not a supernatural or otherworld ghost that continues to exist after the death of the body, in the sense commonly held to be true by most religions.
In The Scripture Doctrine of Materialism, Cooper turns words the Gospels against the religion-for-profit churches of his own day. Cooper points out that if one consults the words of Jesus and his apostles, rather than those who came after and sought to “explain” them later, the views stated or implied by Jesus’ own words and actions supports the view that – in general – consciousness ends at death. Cooper persuasively argues that Jesus preached a bodily resurrection, akin to that which He himself allegedly achieved, and thus even for a Christian the correct view should be that the soul dies with the death of the body, only to be resurrected on “the last day” in the case of those who accepted the promised salvation while living. The Scripture Doctrine of Materialism is interesting to us today mainly for the same reason that Cooper likely intended – as a “foot in the door” to encourage those Christians who had never considered the matter to open their minds to the views supported by the evidence of Nature.
The Appendix on the Clergy is a broadside against the occupation that bedeviled Cooper throughout his career. Cooper detested the Clergy, and in turn they detested him. The clergy of South Carolina repeatedly attacked Cooper’s livelihood as president of the University, and he responded in kind, summarizing his views as follows: “The priesthood in every age, in every country, forbid discussion, frowned down all investigation; they require, like other tyrants, passive obedience and non-resistance. They denounce every man who opposes their views: not merely their spiritual, but their temporal views. Their intent here, as elsewhere, is to fetter your minds first, and your bodies afterwards; and finally, to command your pockets.”
Earlier in his life, Cooper had composed the more technical “A View Of The Metaphysical And Physiological Arguments In Favor Of Materialism.” This work, more technical in nature in addressing the connections of Soul to Body, was dedicated to “The Medical Gentlemen Of The United States, As The Most Competent Judges Of The Arguments Contained In Them.” Rather than appealing to the masses by way of citations to Jesus and the Bible, here Cooper surveyed the latest medical research of his day in setting out the dependency of consciousness on the body for its existence. There are many parallels in this work to the arguments of Lucretius in De Rerum Natura, so this work is of special interests to Epicureans.2
Annexed to both of Cooper’s works on materialism are two fascinating letters to Cooper from Thomas Jefferson. Cooper had forwarded copies of both works for Jefferson’s personal use, and these letters make clear the high regard for Cooper and his ideas.
After a lifetime of feuding with the religious institutions of his day (of which group the Presbyterians were his special nemesis) Cooper published To Any Member of Congress, a broadside volley of arguments against the increasing tendency of the clergy in the United States to seek special privileges for themselves, and to drive from public life all who refused to worship at their altars.
The final work in this volume is not religious or philosophical, but was perhaps the most famous of Cooper’s work in his own day – a history of political affairs in the United States since the Revolution entitled “Consolidation.” Here the reader who might be tempted to romanticize the founding period of America as a world full of Thomas Jeffersons will be surprised to read just how closely the devotees of centralized power came to turning the United States into a hereditary monarchy. The dividing line on the issues had already been drawn geographically in Cooper’s time, with the Northern industrialists seeking to use the powers of central government to tax the farming and mercantile interests of the rest of the country to support themselves. Despite his geographic allegiances, Cooper pointed out the deficiencies even in such Southern leaders as John C. Calhoun, who had shown themselves too ready to accept the idea of redistribution (in the form of national funding for “internal improvements”) so long as they were themselves included in the ranks of the distributees. Consolidation shows how the ideas of Jefferson and Madison that the Union was composed of Sovereign States who retained the power to veto unconstitutional legislation had been eroded to the point of non-existence, and the tragedy to which that erosion was bound to lead.
Consolidation, dealing as it does with political issues, is less reliable as a reflection of Epicurean ideas, but even here it would be well to refer back to the Principal Doctrines. As shown by the famous example of Cassius resistance to Caesar’s consolidation of power in the Roman Republic, ancient Epicureans can most certainly be classified as in favor of limited government. Consider, for example, Doctrine Thirty-Nine:
He who desires to live tranquilly without having anything to fear from other men ought to make them his friends. Those whom he cannot make friends he should at least avoid rendering enemies, and if that is not in his power, he should avoid all dealings with them as much as possible, and keep away from them as far as it is in his interest to do so.
Although not stated in political terms, this Doctrine is a nothing if not a prescription for keeping governmental units limited to those who share bonds of friendship, for no doubt those bonds would serve to unite the members of such union in voluntary agreements of the strongest force. But for those who cannot be made friends – those who disagree on fundamental issues – it is proper to withdraw from contact, not seek to change their minds or attitudes by force.
Some readers may seek out this present volume solely for the sake of Consolidation. So be it – I strongly suspect that Cooper would be happy to expand the audience for the views that he himself considered most important by use of such a device as including that essay here. And not least of all would he be pleased to know that his writings are finally freely available to everyone – even in his adopted home state of South Carolina.
OF
MATERIALISM
BY A LAYMAN
PHILADELPHIA
182
Introduction by Thomas Cooper
(From the Appendix by Thomas Cooper, MD, to his translation of the text On Irritation and Insanity by F.J.V. Broussais)
In the year 1787, (44 years ago) I published in England the first volume of Tracts, Ethical, Theological and Political; Warrington printed. Among these tracts was one containing a view in defense of the doctrine of Materialism, first read at the Manchester literary and philosophical Society; the same in all essential respects with that here presented, and which last is in fact abridged from my early publication. The addition of those tracts was well-received and soon sold off; but owing to other avocations I never republished or continued them.
In the year 1822, a clamor was raised in this state (South Carolina) among some well-meaning but not well informed people, against the heterodox opinions which it was supposed I entertained; as if it were not allowable in republican America for any man to entertain any opinions which on due consideration he conscientiously believed to be well-founded. The vague and general accusation preferred to the Legislature by two Grand Juries from a distant part of the state, instigated by some of the clergy, was referred to a committee of the House of Representatives who reported in substance that whatever opinions I was presumed to entertain now were well known before I was appointed to the Presidency of the College, and being deduced from the Christian Scriptures, ought to form no objection to me at this time. The report was adopted and the committee discharged.
In the recklessness of accusation at that time it was asserted in some of the newspapers of the state that Mr. Jefferson had been compelled to procure my dismissal from the honorable situation to which I had been appointed in the Virginia University (the joint professorships of Chemistry and Law). It became proper for me therefore to be prepared to show, if necessary, that my opinions on the subject alluded to were neither inconsistent with the Christian doctrines of the New Testament or with sound philosophy. In the year 1823, I drew up the tracts here published, and sent them to Philadelphia as the place to most likely to afford their confirmation or confutation; and I published them anonymously that they might stand or fall by the intrinsic merit or demerit of the arguments employed.
I adopted this course also from a disinclination to publish anything of a theological character in this state. I have from the time I came here to the present moment conscientiously abstained from the expression of any theological opinion whatever, before or in the presence of any student of this college: my deliberate advice and direction having always been, and now is, that they ought to adopt and profess the religious creed of their parents till the laws of the land set them free from parental control. It will be time enough then for them to investigate the subjects if they shall be inclined to do so. Young as they are, and while students, they have not the preliminary requisites to do so fully, finally, and beneficially. For this reason, I shall send the present translation of Broussais to a distance, nor shall I publish it in South Carolina.
I cannot help thinking it a great disgrace to the country that any objection should be made to the publication and free discussion of any opinion whatever; for I know of no means of settling truth on a firm basis but the perfect freedom allowed to every body of presenting to the public every view that can be taken of a controverted doctrine. Surely we cannot see the clearer for allowing one of our eyes to be closed, or be the wiser for looking at one side only of a disputed question and obstinately refusing to consider any other. When the gentlemen of the clerical profession show such morbid irritability at the discussion of metaphysical or theological doctrines which they would fain persuade us are too sacred to be disputed, they give rise by so doing to the strong suspicion that they themselves are not fully persuaded that the doctrines they inculcate are clear of all doubt and liable to no overthrow. Else why this irritation when some orthodox tenets is modestly doubted? Why not confute their opponents instead of abusing them, and exhibit to the world their own superiority by the mildness and calmness of their conduct and manner and the temperate force of their arguments?
But I fear this is not to be expected from men who regard a doubt of their doctrines as an attack upon themselves. A priesthood, claiming to be a separate and sacred order of men, hired and paid to teach and preach certain doctrines and opinions, and adopting this mode of life as a trade -- a profession -- as the sure road to comfort and consideration, if not affluence, and strictly imbued with the esprit de corps , the corporation spirit of the clerical order, cannot be expected to come into the field of argument without a strong bias in favor of the tenets by which they obtained their living, or without irritation and anger against those people who in any manner oppose their influence over the people. If truth interferes with their interest, they can hardly be expected to look at it but with a jealous eye. This will happen even to wise, learned, and well disposed men, as many of them really are, when thus placed and situated: and the objection lays, not against the individual, but the order to which he belongs, and the trade by which he gets his living; often forced upon him by circumstances over which he has had little or no control.
Hence has arisen the mischievous interference of the clergy in astronomy, geology, zoology, physiology, and medicine; and the check constantly pressing upon the friends of truth, who would willingly discuss all the questions connected with these branches of knowledge fully, freely, and fairly. Bigotry is a continual spy upon science, and restrains that perfect freedom of discussion which the cause of truth and the good of the public absolutely requires upon every contested question.
As to the doctrine of Materialism, I run no risk in prophesying that twenty years hence it will be the prevailing doctrine among Physiologists and Physicians, not only in Europe but in this country. The views of the question taken by Priestley, Cabanis, Gall, Lawrence, and Broussais, I consider as pregnant with arguments impossible to be confuted: if they can be successfully opposed, it is high time the attempt should be made by the advocates of ancient opinions. Men of science begin now to revolt at the fetters which their clerical guides would willingly fix upon them; and something more is required by public opinion than outcries of heterodoxy and infidelity and dread lest the enormous influence of the clergy should be exposed to danger. By what ever opprobrious terms truth may be designated, those gentlemen may rely on it that error is no longer sacred, and if they wish to preserve a reasonable influence upon men of sense, they must resort more to argument and less to abuse.
Being in the habit of transmitting to Mr. Jefferson my publications, I sent him the two tracks that follow: and I think my readers will not be displeased to peruse his opinion respecting them which I have accordingly subjoined.
T.C.
The Scripture Doctrine of Materialism
By THOMAS COOPER, M.D.
Philadelphia
1823
There are only two doctrines of a religious nature that appear to me to have any bearing on the welfare of society; because they alone furnish a sanction and incitement to moral conduct:
(1) The belief in an all wise, good, and powerful Being, who superintends the moral government of the universe;
(2) the belief in a state of future existence after the death of the body, wherein every human creature shall be punished or rewarded according to his good or bad conduct and habits during the present life.
Whether we shall be punished or rewarded by means of the soul, or as in this life by means of our living bodies, seems to me to be a point of no practical consequence. The sanction -- the incitement, consists in our persuasion of the reality of the punishment and if the reward; whether it be by the one means or by the other. Accordingly, there are good and wise men in abundance – pious and learned Christians, who are of the one opinion and of the other: nor all any good man to believe that his neighbor is the worse for adopting either.
Circumstances, unnecessary to be detailed, have induced me to draw up my own opinions on the subject, and the arguments on which I rely; the reader will judge for himself; I have no right to judge for him, or he for me.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE
SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF
******
Two opinions are entertained respecting thought, intelligence, and the phenomena termed mental, or intellectual. One is that they are to be ascribed to a being distinct from the body, having no property in common with matter (immaterial, spiritual) incapable of corruption like the matter of our bodies, and in consequence thereof, immortal. This being, naturally distinct from the body, is the human soul; united to the body during its life, set free from the body at death, and without whose union with the body there would be nothing like thought, volition, or action. As the soul alone can act and suffer, this opinion of its separate existence is essentially connected with the Christian doctrine of a future state. Such is the prevailing opinion adopted by all the clergy; and by them inculcated as an article of faith essential to Christianity.
The other is that all of the phenomenon termed mental or intellectual are to be ascribed not to any soul, distinct or separate from the body, but to the properties which God Almighty has been pleased to connect with the human frame -- with the human system of organized matter. So that thought, volition, action, or the results of the circumstances to which God has been pleased that man, as an organized being, should be exposed during his continuance in this life. It is also said that there are manifest appearances of thought, volition, and, consequently, action, in brute animals; inferior greatly in complication and perfection to those that are observed in man, but not different in kind. The organization of brute animals being in many essential respects inferior to that of man.
According to the first doctrine, man is a compound animal consisting of a soul immaterial, immortal, invisible, and other body such as we see: this is Immaterialism. According to the second doctrine, man is not a compound animal, but consists merely of the parts and their properties, which are visible and apparent, and which can be made known to us by our senses: this is Materialism. According to the first doctrine, when the body dies the soul survives; according to the second doctrine, when the body dies, the whole man dies.
The present inquiry is, which of these two doctrines is most conformable to Christianity as delivered to us in the four Gospels that furnish the details of the life, death, and precepts of Jesus Christ. If it shall appear on the balance of evidence that Jesus Christ supported in precepts and in practice the one opinion or the other, then is it a Christian duty to embrace that opinion which has received his sanction.
I propose to show that the opinion denominated Materialism is -- and the opinion denominated Immaterialism is not -- consistent with Christianity.
It will be prudent at the outset to settle the question –
WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY?
The Christianity of the Romish church is one thing: of the Greek church another. The Christianity of an Athanasian, of a Sabellian, of an Arian, of a Socinian, of a Priestleyan, are all different: the variances relate to the essential points. The Christianity of Calvin and the Synod of Dort was one thing: the Christianity of James Harmens (Arminius) was another. The Christianity of George Whitfield, like the thirty-nine articles of the church of England, admits the doctrine of election and reprobation; and Whitfield held the final perseverance of the saints. The Christianity of John Wesley, and of the present church of England, from the bench and in the pulpit, excludes both the one and the other. The opinion of a Trinitarian appears to an Unitarian to be polytheism and idolatry. The opinion of an Unitarian seems to a Trinitarian; little, if anything, short of blasphemy.
To a rigid Calvinist, mere morality, and the slightest value or efficacy allowed to good works, is setting up the works of the law over the precepts of the Gospel, and the pretensions of good conduct and benevolent actions over faith in Christ, and redeeming grace. To a Calvinist, all good works proceeding merely from the voluntary disposition, the kind affections, the due regard for character, and sense of social duty in a person not yet called through grace, and justified in Jesus, “doubtless (in the language of the thirty-nine articles) have in them the nature of sin.” While to a man who professes to be governed in his conduct by a sense of moral rectitude, of obedience to the laws, and respect for his own standing in society, among the good and the wise with whom he lives, the Calvinistic decision of the quinquarticular controversy, or the five points, as they are called -- the doctrine of final perseverance, election and reprobation, independent of moral conduct -- and the efficacy of a deathbed repentance -- assume the character of temptations and provocatives to all manner of crime, and are subversive (where they really operate) of all the bonds of civil and domestic society. That a life of crime may be fully expiated by few minutes of repentance may be Calvin's religion, but it is not a tenet that society ought to encourage. Amid the dissonance of opinion, where are the genuine doctrines of Christianity to be found? In the Bible? Alas! All sects and all parties appeal indiscriminately to the Bible. Each constitutes himself sole authorized interpreter for, and infallible judge of his neighbor; and sets up the paling of exclusive salvation within the narrow limits of his own creed.
I have searched so much, so long, so ardently, so anxiously to arrive at truth on these subjects that I am sensibly alive to all the difficulties that surround it; to the dangers of discussing it; and a certain punishment that awaits every man who opposes predominant opinions. Hence I do not pretend that my opinions are true; I can only say that I believe they are. Hence I have full charity for all seekers after truth who differ from me in opinion. Let them hold their opinions; they have as much right to them as I have to mine; their belief is as obligatory upon them as mine on me.
But I hope I ask not too much if I require that the toleration shall be mutual. Whatever my own opinions may be, they have been the result of laborious inquiry -- they have never conduced to my interests, but far otherwise -- I have never taken them up as a trade -- I have no motive of interest to adopt or avow them -- I do not get my living by professing them. In saying this, I blame not those who do, but it manifestly furnishes a drawback from their authority. Hence I object to the interference, and much more to the decision of men, who being hired and paid to propagate certain opinions, will of course maintain the doctrines by which they live and thrive.
The motto of a hired and paid priesthood is in all ages and in all countries the same: “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!” and the worldly-minded among them will hoot out of society if they can all those who interfere with their trade. I know many worthy men of the clerical order to whom this will not apply; men whose sound learning, good sense, and kind dispositions, make them estimable exceptions to a general rule. But the general rule is as I have stated it; and my reader knows it is so.
If I state this strongly, it is because I have felt it deeply. Suppose an architect, a painter, a physician, called upon in a court of justice to give his professional opinion upon a professional point in litigation: suppose it should appear on the cross examination that he was hired and paid for giving currency to the opinions he had advanced before the court -- would do the jury believe him? Would the court allow any weight to his testimony? But the clergy consider this objection almost as blasphemy: for they have always and everywhere arrogated exclusive privileges that their fellow citizens dare not claim.
In answering the question “What is Christianity?" I presume not therefore to do more than submit to the reader my own opinion, with the reasons on which it is founded; leaving him to judge of the one and of the other. Requesting only, that until he can discover a probable and reasonable motive why I, a layman, should embrace opinions so unpopular, unless it be the truth of them according to the lights I possess, he will impute to me error of the understanding only; and to this I shall willingly submit. It is with great reluctance I engage in this controversy, but the events of my neighborhood have rendered it a measure of defense.
I lay it down as a known and acknowledged rule of evidence that in ascertaining any fact we are to require and resort to the highest and best evidence that the nature of the case will admit. We are not allowed to proceed upon hearsay testimony, where the original witness can be produced; we must not produce a copy of the deed, when the deed itself is at our command; we must not aver against a record; we must not bring the fleeting recollection of verbal assertion in opposition to declarations deliberately written and acknowledged; and so on.
I lay down also as known and acknowledged rules of evidence:
That we cannot contradict or modify superior evidence by inferior. If the testimony of B depend upon the evidence of A, it can neither add to nor detract from the value of A’s evidence.
That we need not resort to inferior evidence if the superior be adequate to our purposes.
That we are to rest our fact and all our conclusions from it on the best evidence that can be produced to establish it, and on no other.
That if the evidence thus admitted he clear in the main, and ambiguous in some parts, we are to construe the parts that seem ambiguous in conformity with the main object and intention about which there is no ambiguity.
Lastly, that Christianity, being intended for all mankind, must necessarily consist of few propositions, and those plain and intelligible to any man of common learning and common understanding.
And now to the application:
Christianity is to be found in the doctrines and facts promulgated in the New Testament.
The New Testament consists of the doctrines and facts of Christ's ministry contained in the four Gospels; and of the doctrines and facts related of the apostles after his resurrection.
The doctrines and facts related to Christ himself, as delivered to us by the four evangelists, are the highest and best evidence we possess of what Christianity is.
1. Because Jesus Christ was the founder of Christianity. It rests upon what he said and did.
2. Because all Christians acknowledge that Jesus Christ could not be deceived. He was not fallible like common men.
3. Because his apostles, deriving all their knowledge from him, can neither add to, or diminish the authority of his doctrines.
Hence, I hold that no comments, apostolic or other, upon the doctrines of Jesus are in themselves obligatory on his disciples. I rest exclusively on the best evidence the nature of the case will admit -- on what Jesus Christ said and did; -- and I seek for Christianity in the four evangelists, and in them only. A Christian is bound by all the precepts and doctrines of Christ Jesus; he acknowledges no other master and needs no other teacher.
The reader is acquainted with the four Gospels of the evangelists; appealing then to the reader I say that the only doctrines of Christianity plainly and clearly delivered by Christ himself, and which his apostles were enjoyed to propagate, are these:
1. The doctrine of one God; God the father as the only object of adoration, and is the only creator, preserver, and moral Governor of the universe; in opposition to the absurd notions of polytheism prevalent all over the world when Christ appeared.
2. The resurrection from the dead, and a state of future rewards and punishments distributed according to the past conduct, habits, and dispositions of the dead person who shall for this purpose be called up before the judgment seat at the great day.
This doctrine is rendered necessary to complete the plan of the moral government of the universe; and to rectify the apparent inequalities of good and evil in the present life by the distributive justice of a future state of existence. This doctrine was not prevalent among the learned of the heathen world; and it renders Christianity of unspeakable value to a Christian, because it puts a doctrine of the very highest importance and of the most salutary influence upon sure and certain foundations, resting upon evidence nowhere to be found but in the Christian scriptures.
3. That Jesus was a person sent of God, divinely commissioned to teach these most salutary doctrines, to confirm them by miracles while living, and by his own predicted resurrection after death: and he did so.
Thus far all sects and orders of Christians agree: and I defy the reader to show me any other opinion delivered in the four Gospels in which Christians do so agree. Surely those doctrines which large portions of good and wise and pious and learned men differ about, after eighteen centuries of laborious discussion, may well be considered as dubious.
Do they agree in the nature and character of Christ himself whether he was equal with the father or inferior -- co-eternal or of subsequent production? Are the doctrines of transubstantiation, of the immaculate conception, of original sin, of collection and reprobation, of vicarious suffering, clearly and explicitly taught in language plain and free from the figurative ambiguity of Eastern metaphor? Are any of the five points so laboriously and abstrusely handled at the Synod of Dort clearly and explicitly laid down in the holy Gospels? No! They are not.
It is notorious that they are even at this day, as in former days, disputed in every part of Christendom by learned and grave men. As I consider the Christian dispensation intended for the benefit of no part of mankind exclusively, but introduced for the present and eternal welfare of the poor, the meek, the unlettered, at least as much as for the learned and the wise; I cannot consider any doctrine essential to Christianity that is not clear and intelligible to an unlearned man of common understanding. Hence I throw out of the catalog of Christian doctrines all those abstruse points that occupied the pens of learned theologians of the present day.
What! Shall a doctrine be deemed essential that has been a subject of controversy for near 2000 years and not yet settled? What! Shall a doctrine be deemed essential which none but learned men are capable of discussing? God forbid. Jesus Christ loved little children, he comforted the poor in spirit and the brokenhearted, he honored the widows mite. Would he mock his followers with doctrines too abstruse for the comprehension of the great mass of mankind -- of the very class he was accustomed to address?
Moreover I consider no tenet as essential that does not bear directly on our moral conduct; that does not make us better men; that does not furnish a motive and a sanction to abstain from evil and do good; that does not tend to make each member of society more valuable to each other. The doctrines of one supreme God, the moral Governor of the universe and a state of future rewards and punishments in another life, according to our conduct and acquired habits in the present, have manifestly this good tendency.
To Christians, there is no sufficient evidence of a future state out of the Christian scriptures and independent of Jesus Christ ,who brought life and immortality to light. The Christian therefore rests upon the Gospel facts with peculiar satisfaction. But what direct bearing on morality can we find in such questions asked -- whether the three persons of the Trinity be three separate persons, distinct intelligent agents, or three modes wherein the supreme being exhibits his power and characters; -- whether the generation of the Son be eternal or not; -- whether the Holy Ghost be a person or an attribute; -- whether the Holy Ghost proceeded from the father only or from the father and the son; -- whether the son be omoousion or omoioision (of the same or similar substance) with the father; -- whether all mankind deserved to be consigned to eternal torments because Eve tempted Adam to eat the forbidden fruit; -- whether we are to bear the pains and penalties of our own misconduct, or whether Christ bore them for us;3 -- whether the terms of redemption are unfailing for the benefit of all men, or for the benefit of the elect only; -- whether the electorate were chosen because God foreknew how they would act, or whether their actions are guided and determined by God's predetermination; -- whether, in the quaint phraseology of Gale, God predetermined man's volition or gave only “his predeterminate concurse to the entitative act?’ -- whether a saint may fall from grace not only foully but finally; -- whether good actions, performed before a sinner be called through saving grace to repentance, have in them the nature of sin, etc. etc. I ask, “Is the great cause of morality furthered by these questions?”
I acknowledge therefore no disputations or disputable Christianity. I know nothing beyond the points I have mentioned as essential to the belief of a Christian. I see that all sects acknowledge these doctrines so far as they are here laid down; and as I know of no other theological opinion undisputed among Christians, I adhere to these and these only.
If then it be asked, is Christ equal with God, or coeval with God, or inferior to him in power, was his generation from eternity or in time; is he an object of adoration equally with the father; is he omoousion or omoioision? I cannot tell; none of these points seem to be settled by an uniform series of plain and unconflicting text that leave no room for hesitation.
I content myself therefore with what is plain, clear, and indisputable. Jesus Christ was divinely commissioned for the duties he fulfilled on earth, or he could not have worked miracles in proof of his doctrine. I understand this far, and there I stop.
Well, but the resurrection from the dead: this is not so plain as to be free from doubts and difficulties even to a materialist. What kind of body is it that will rise? The corrupted and corruptible mass of matter thrown into the grave? Or some body more fit for the enjoyment of immortality? To all this I reply that Jesus Christ having preached the resurrection of the body, I take it as he preached it.
If I cannot explain all the difficulties that attend this opinion and resolve all the curious questions that can be raised on it, I am content. I am content to believe Jesus Christ on his own terms, and after his own fashion, and no other. Had all these curious questions required explanation, he would have given it: if he has not given it, we need it not.
Such is my notion of Christianity. If I think that others believe too much, and if they think I believe too little, I cannot help it. By the use we have made of the lights that have been afforded us, must we stand or fall; and may God forgive, as I hope and believe he will, the involuntary errors on the one side and the other of those who seek after the truth.
I shall now attempt to show that
THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION IS WHAT IS NOW CALLED MATERIALISM, AND THAT IT IS INCONSISTENT WITH THE NOTION OF A SEPARATE, IMMATERIAL, AND IMMORTAL SOUL.
The plainest account of the resurrection seems to be that delivered by Jesus Christ in the fifth chapter of John, 24, etc. "Verily, verily I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believe on him that sent me have everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. Verily, verily I say unto you, that the hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the son of God, and they that hear shall live. For as the father hath life in himself, so has he given to the son to have life in himself; and had given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the son of man. Marvel not at this, for the hour cometh in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and come forth; they that have done good to the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation" (condemnation).
The resurrection of the Gospels, whether of Christ or others, is always spoken of as a resurrection of the dead: Luke 24:46, “this it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day." John 20:9, that he must rise from the dead, and so on. I need not multiply passages on this point, which cannot be disputed.
But on the modern hypothesis of an immaterial soul that survives the body and never dies -- which is to be the future object of reward and punishment -- the resurrection of the dead is not merely an absurdity, but a falsehood.
Again, if this supposed seat of thought, intelligence, volition, of all the passions and affections, do really exist as is supposed, then is a resurrection useless and unnecessary. That being needs not be revived from the dead which never dies.
An immaterialist -- a deist, needs not this manifestation of divine justice first revealed by Jesus Christ. Our body (they may say) is the passive instrument of the soul which is confined to it during this life; it is meant to serve the purposes of this life only: when the body dies, then is our nobler and most essential part set at liberty; and exerts its powers, free and untrammeled by the fleshy load to which it was conjoined. As it is of itself, and essentially immaterial and immortal, no future resurrection is necessary to its future existence.
These are the fair and inevitable conclusions from what it pleases the priesthood to call orthodoxy.
Again: If it were true that the human being consisted of a material body incapable of thought, volition, feeling, intelligence -- and of an immaterial and immortal soul conjoined to it during life, and set free from it at death -- and if this were one of the essential doctrines of the Christian religion, then would the declaration of Jesus Christ to this purpose have been plain, unambiguous, and explicit: but we have no such description of human nature laid down by Christ. He has nowhere adopted or declared this opinion; he has nowhere described us as consisting of an immortal soul conjoined to a mortal body, or inculcated any thing like it as an article of faith. He has uniformly declared that the resurrection he preached was the resurrection, not of the compound creature man, consisting of body and soul -- not of the human soul which is described as immortal -- but of the human body which died and was buried. I hope the expressions of Jesus Christ will be accepted as good authority for what is Christianity on this point; I have no better to offer.
I repeat that when Jesus Christ talks of the resurrection of the dead, it must be the resurrection of that which is liable to death; and it cannot mean the resurrection of that which is not liable to death, but being immortal, never dies. Matthew 22:23; Mark 12:18; Luke 20:33. The Sadducees put to him a question of matrimony under the Jewish law. They asked, “therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife shalt she be of the seven?" Here was a fair opportunity for Jesus Christ to have explained the modern doctrine of immaterialism, and to have shown that the institution of marriage was a corporeal rite and had reference to the body only, and that the marriage of two immaterial souls was an absurdity and an impossibility. But he gives no hint whatever of the soul; only that, at the resurrection of the dead, there is neither marrying or giving in marriage.
Luke 24:46: And he said unto them, thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead on the third day.
John 20:9: For as yet they knew not the Scriptures, that he must rise again from the dead.
John 2:21: But he spake of the temple of his body.
When Jesus had risen, the women who went to search for his body found it not in the sepulchre, for the body had risen from the dead. Luke 24:6, Why seek you the living among the dead? He is not here but is risen.
When Christ died upon the cross, many bodies of saints that slept arose. Matthew 27:52. Is it not strange that in none of these passages relating to the resurrection from the dead have we any reference to the soul?
Again: The resurrection from the dead promise by Jesus was exemplified by his own death, burial, and resurrection, such as was his resurrection, such will be ours; or he died to no purpose. If his personal exemplification of the resurrection from the dead, to which he appealed, was different in its kind and nature from that which mankind are to undergo, it becomes no longer a type, an exemplification, and a proof of our resurrection. He arose expressly after predicting that he would do so to make manifest and illustrate by fact the doctrine he had been preaching. Let us then consider the Scripture account of Christ's own resurrection.
John 20:24: But Thomas (one of the twelve), called Didymus, was not with him when Jesus came. The other disciples said unto him, we have seen the Lord: but he said unto them, except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my fingers into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. And after eight days again, the disciples were within, and Thomas was with them. Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, peace be unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, reach hither thy finger and to hold my hands; and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered in saith unto him my Lord and my God! Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed; Blessed are they who have not seen me, and yet have believed.
Other circumstances are mentioned by Luke 24:38, in giving an account of Jesus appearing to disciples after his resurrection. "And he said unto them, why are you troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts. The hold my hands and my feet, that it is I, myself: handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me have. And when he had just spoken, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they believed not for joy, but wondered, he said unto them, have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of broiled fish and a honeycomb, and he took it, and did eat before them." See the parallel passages, Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24:39.
This is the only account the Scriptures give us of the great and important proof, and manifestation of the resurrection of the dead, produced by Christ himself, as an example of that future miraculous destination of the human kind.
If the belief in the separate existence of a soul which dies not with the body, and its liability to reward and punishment at the great day, be an article of Christianity, was not this the proper, the last, the only occasion to explain it?
Is there one word of the human soul in this account?
And when Christ appeals to his disciples, and describes what constitutes himself; does he not appeal to his visible, tangible body, and to that only; does he mention or allude to the soul?
Does this account furnish a proof of any resurrection but the resurrection of the body and the body only?
Does not Christ in effect negative the existence of any separate soul when, exhibiting his body, he says, here, "this is I, myself”?
Is anyone required to believe in the existence of a separate soul, when it is no more noticed on this solemn occasion than if it did not exist at all?
And why is it not noticed? Because it does not exist. Would such an occasion of explaining and inculcating the doctrine have been passed by?
Again: Matthew 27:53 “And the graves were opened, and many bodies of saints that slept arose, and came out of their graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.” This is again a type and an exemplar of man's resurrection: but not one word of the soul.
How is it, some may ask, that this corrupt, mortal, and putrefying body can be the object of the resurrection and inherit immortality? I answer that in Luke 22:36 Christ says, “the dead who are raised shall die no more." Of course some change will take place after the resurrection to fit them for immortality. What change, or how it is to be affected, as Christ has not explained, neither do I; and with the promise as he has made it a Christian should be content.
The only passage in the Gospels from which the existence of a separate an immortal soul can apparently be inferred is Matthew 10:28, which in the translation runs thus: “fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." To this I reply that the word here translated soul (a) is translated in very many other places indiscriminately, “life” and “soul.” Meaning always the life of the body, and never exclusively the soul. Thus, a little way before in Matthew 6:25, it is translated life: “to take no more thought for your life.” To the same purpose, Luke 12:22. So in Mark 3:4: “To save life or to kill.” So in Luke 12:23 “the life more than raiment." Matthew 6:23; Matthew 10:39; Matthew 6:27; Mark 8:36,37, and in upwards of twenty passages more. In all of these passages, the word translated indiscriminately “soul” and “life” is one and the same word. So in Revelation 16:3, “and every living soul died in the sea.”
The meaning of the passage is therefore that Christ, who was appointed to teach and to preach the resurrection unto life, says, “fear not them who can kill the body, but him who cannot annihilate life itself, and is short all your hopes of resurrection and a future existence."
I do not know any other passage in the Gospels that can be plausibly dragged in aid of the immaterial hypothesis; and I will venture to say there is not one passage in the Bible so strongly in favor of that opinion as the passage I have just considered: which is manifestly a translation, made by men whose heads were full of the doctrines of the soul, and made with a view to that very opinion.
Again: The following passages all tend to show that there shall be no resurrection whatever, but it is a miraculous interposition of God Almighty, through Jesus Christ, who shall call the dead from their graves, at his own appointed time; until when there shall be no day of judgment: and of course that without the promise of Christian resurrection, the dead would forever remain dead. This is utterly inconsistent with the notion of the most essential and active part of man, immortal in itself, subsisting in a state of superior intelligence and activity when free from the burden and clog of the human body. When freed from the prison of the body, why, by miraculous interposition, raise up the body to imprison it again? Matthew 13:30-49; Matthew 26:27; Matthew 19:28; Matthew 24:31,32; Mark 13:26,27; John 6:40,44,54; John 26:22. I could add many more passages from the acts and epistles, but I purposely confine myself to the Evangelists.
So far as the plain fact, universal experience, and the declarations of the Scriptures will bear us out, there is no pleasure and no suffering independent of the animated body, either in this life or in the life to come. Animation ceases when the body dies; and it will be restored when the body is called up from the grave at the great day in conformity with the promises made to us in the Gospels of Christ. Without those promises, confined to the human race -- as a beast dieth so dieth man; without further hope of sentient existence. At least, the arguments for a future state are barely probable, independent of the Gospel, and Christ's example. So that to a materialist, the value of a Christian Gospel is unspeakable; to the immaterialist it is superfluous and even contradictory.
One other argument I will urge that seems to me to have great weight. The Jews were divided into two sects; the Sadducees who taught that there would be no resurrection and the Pharisees, who held that there would be one. The inculpations and objectives of Christ against the Pharisees are vehement, and frequent. Not so against the Sadducees. Among the various conversations and disputes he had with the Sadducees on the subject of the resurrection from the dead, he not only never makes any use of the argument from the immaterial and immortal nature of the human soul, but he never introduces it at all -- not a word is to be found on the subject: its existence is not hinted at.
After this, can it be said that the separate existence of an immortal soul is the doctrine of Christ? I am lost in utter astonishment at the presumptuous hardihood that can state this doctrine as an essential article of the Christian faith! -- at the impudent intolerance that can cry down a man's character and standing in society -- can interdict him like the banished of old, from fire, water, and shelter -- because examining Scripture for himself, he cannot conscientiously accept as divine truth the metaphysical reveries of Calvinistic theology!
The doctrine of a future state stands on a much firmer basis on the supposition of the resurrection of the body, and the body only, then on the resurrection of the soul (if indeed this last be not, as I take it to be, a manifest contradiction in terms.) That being whom it shall please God, through Jesus Christ to raise from the dead -- from the grave -- will be the object of future rewards and punishments in another life for its deeds or misdeeds transacted in this life. I know of no Christian materialist who denies this, and I believe it is considered a doctrine probable, but not certain, independent of Scripture, from considerations connected with the moral government of the universe but rendered certain by the Christian scriptures only. To a materialist, the Scripture doctrine of the resurrection is superfluous; for his man is essentially immortal in his immortal soul! To a materialist, is everything; for it contains the only sure and certain proof of the resurrection that is to be found within the compass of human knowledge.
And here I take my stand. I hold it useless to urge any further argument. It would be an anticlimax in ratiocination. That which is not Jesus Christ's Christianity is not my Christianity. The opinions of the apostles, of the fathers of the Church, of grave and learned divines, can add no force to Gospel authority. You cannot fortify stronger evidence by weaker. If you say it may explain or illustrate what is dubious, I deny that any of the essential articles of Christianity that I have stated are dubious. You may dispute as much as you please about the human soul, which is not mentioned once in the Gospels, but you cannot deny the resurrection of the body. You may dispute about the nature and grade of Christ's character, but you cannot as a Christian dispute his divine mission. I require no other proof that any doctrine is unessential to Christianity than that it is dubious. Jesus Christ does not require us on pain of eternal damnation to believe on doubtful evidence -- although the priesthood does. Could the unlettered audience present at the sermon on the Mount have understood a sentence of the Assembly's Catechism?
The sum and substance of my argument is this:
(a) All that is essential to Christianity is contained in the four Gospels that give us an account of what Jesus taught and did; who certainly would omit nothing essential to his own plan. The doctrine of an immaterial, immortal soul is nowhere to be found promulgated, explained, or hinted at, in any part of the four Gospels, except in one solitary text where the ambiguity arises from the translation.
(b) The resurrection everywhere spoken of is the resurrection of the dead -- the resurrection of the body, not of the soul.
(c) This avoiding any notice of the doctrine in question is more extraordinary as frequent opportunities and occasions occurred that seem to have required, if this doctrine were true, that it should be enforced and explained.
(d) This doctrine of a separate and immortal soul renders unnecessary any miraculous interposition to produce the resurrection of the dead for the purpose of future reward and punishment; inasmuch as the soul never dies. It may therefore be a very good tenet for a Deist, but not for a Christian.
Download this book for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-29 show above.)