"the man returns to dust." Death is being deprived of life. annihilation is being reduced to nothing.

"Total

I perfectly agree with Mr. Moore that the death of the Christian is beautifully pictured as a sleep ;" and with Mr. Hayward, that "the metaphor must be natural and not strained." But still the question occurs: In what particular aspect is the metaphor to be looked upon as agreeing with the thing signified? I need not say that a figure or metaphor is neither unnatural nor strained, although it may not be found to agree in all points, with the thing signified; or even although there should only be an apparent agreement on one point. A figure or simile may be compared to a ball on a plane. However far removed some portions of the ball may be from the plane, it always touches at one point. So if sleep fitly represent the saint in death, although only in one particular, it justifies the use of the figure. And it need not even be the primary idea which we attach to sleep in which the thing figured agrees.

Perhaps the finest expression of the primary idea which we attach to sleep, may be found in the words of the poet; "Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." The weary brain, and the languid limb sink into repose; but the sleeper awakes, to find that sleep has refreshed him, and restored his energies, and with renewed vigour he goes forth to discharge the duties of life. This idea, although it may be the primary idea of sleep, yet cannot be the true analogy between sleep and death. For death repairs no waste,-renews no spent faculty, restores no exhausted power. But "when deep sleep falleth upon man," the voluntary exercise of his powers and faculties of both body and mind is, for the time being, completely suspended; and moments and hours wing their flight, by him uncounted, and to him unknown. His heart continues to throb-his blood courses through his veins, and his lungs continue their wonted functions, breathing the vital air; but by no voluntary effort of his. He is not even conscious of his own existence. And so long as that profound, death-like sleep lasts, an hour, a day, a thousand years, are the same to the sleeper. This has been questioned, but without evidence. It has been said that a man does know whether a long or a short interval has elapsed during which he has slept. But this is not the point. The question is, not what the man's impressions are after he awakes, but is he at all conscious of the flight of time while asleep? This is a simple question which need not be left to the learned to decide. Every man may answer it for himself. It is said that a man, on awaking, feels certain whether his sleep has been long or short. Well, but whence does this conviction come? Does it arise from any consciousness which he had, during his sleep, that the time was long or short? or is it not simply the result of past experience, as he feels his exhausted energies restored, or wearied nature still craving further rest? The latter is unquestionably the source of his convictions. And if a man in sleep is unconscious of the passing hours; unconscious that he is asleep,-unconscious of his own existence and, during the whole period of his death, is, on the contrary, in a state of living consciousness; then in that case there is no natural and true analogy between our nightly repose in sleep, and death: seeing that in the one case a man is wholly unconscious that

he is in life; while in the other case he is quite conscious that he is dead!

Mr. Hayward thinks it was wholly unnecessary that Paul should have comforted the saints in Thessalonica with the assurance that those asleep were being "partially kept alive in primary death, for the promise of resurrection would be ample evidence to them of their continuance in partial vital existence."

If it had been either "lawful or expedient" for Paul to tell the sorrowing saints that their brethren were not dead, but "kept in preserved life" by Christ till his return, is it at all likely that he would not have done so ? Or that he would have told them instead that "the Lord will descend from heaven with a shout, and the dead in Christ shall rise," when, in reality, according to this theory, there were no dead to rise! It would only be the resurrection of the living! And is it possible that the saints could regard Paul telling them that their "dead brethren would rise," as ample evidence that they were not dead! Really, in view of this doctrine, we begin, like the disciples of old, to "wonder what the rising from the dead could mean."

Were it not that the body comes more legitimately under the cognisance of our senses, perhaps as good a plea might be put forth for it being "preserved in conscious life " as can be put forth for either soul or spirit being so preserved. In Acts ii. 25-28 we read, "David speaketh concerning him (Christ), I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved: therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope: because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell (hades), neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life." Here we think it is clear that the "flesh resting in hope" refers to the time of death. And if so; and if "rest implies conscious living existence, as clearly as it implies cessation from active effort," then is the plea for flesh life in death established. And, moreover, the flesh is not only said to "rest," but to rest in hope. And as the capacity to hope presupposes existing conscious life, might not preserved life of body be maintained with as much seeming force as "preserved soul-life?" Of one thing we feel certain, that, had it been written, "Moreover also my soul shall rest in hope" it would have been held as an unanswerable proof of soul-life through death, and perhaps few would have been bold enough to have denied the force of the argument.

But how exquisitely beautiful and assuring are the last words of the quotation: "Thou hast made known to me the ways of life." To the nations sunk in heathen darkness the "ways of life" were not made known, but out of men's desire for immortality sprang the speculation and expectation of "immortal soul-life." "The ways of life," however, which the Scriptures make known, are not in death, nor in hades, but in deliverance from death and hades, "Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hades, nor suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." The resurrection from the dead of the "first-born among many brethren" " brought life and immortality to light;" not only "made known," but exemplified the " ways of life." "I am he that liveth, and was dead," said the "firstfruits of them that slept, and behold I am alive for evermore,

Amen; and have the keys of hades and of death." (Rev. i. 18.) Having "the keys of hades and of death," he can "open and no man can shut," and makes sure the fulfilment of his own promise-"Upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it."

Mr. Hayward's apprehensions of my refusing to believe in "new life in the Spirit" are wholly groundless, and, thanking the editor for his corrective note, and for endorsing which renders any further remarks from me on this point wholly unnecessary. At the same time, I cannot see that this has much to do with the question of "life preserved through death." For if an unbeliever, composed of body, soul, and spirit, without this "new life in the spirit," nevertheless has "continued existence in life after his physical death," this "new life" is not at all essential to the question on hand. And if continued "life in death" be the lot of believer and unbeliever alike, why incumber the question with distinctions, where it is only a distinction without a difference?

How can Paul's words, "I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him," mean that it was his "actual life, his soul," unless Paul had, in this life, delivered up his actual "life, his soul," to Christ to keep? Paul was then not dead, but living; living physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually! If it be replied that Paul's statement is to be understood as indicating, not that the soul had as yet been actually given up, but with a view to its being given up at death; then we ask, Why not apply the same principle of interpretation to those passages which speak of "eternal life" as if it were a gift already in possession, and refer it to the time when "the righteous shall go away into life eternal?" More especially when so many passages plainly, and without any obscurity, set forth eternal life as a matter of promise, a matter of hope? And moreover, how can Paul give up his "actual life, his soul," and yet Paul be still "preserved in life through death ?"

(To be continued.)

MAN'S PREROGATIVE.*

"THE evils of controversy," as was aptly quoted by Edward White from Robert Hall on a recent public occasion, "are all transitory; its benefits are all permanent and real." This we rejoice to know. But when will controversialists be honest? When will they deem it beneath the dignity of logicians to put forth as new truths, statements which have been refuted ten thousand times ?-statements which they themselves could upset quite as well as their antagonists, and better perhaps than some of them? We call these fictitious formulæ "men of straw;" but men of flesh are liable to be greatly bewildered by them, and seem

"The Prerogative of Man, or his soul's immortality and high perfection defended and explained against the rash and rude conceptions of a late author who hath inconsiderately adventured to impugne it." Printed in the year 1645. (Name both of writer and of printer suppressed.)

Three Letters in the Baptist Magazine for April, May, and June, 1876: principally directed against Dr. Petavel, by W. Barker, Baptist Minister, of Hastings.

ingly have a fondness for them. Therefore it is that disputants whose aim is not so much the exhibition as the evasion of truth are for ever setting up these men of straw, like bastions in the field of combat, to answer the two-fold purpose of scaring the enemy, and affording a post of retreat for themselves. We heartily wish they would come out like Goliath of old, and like him just say what they mean ;-defy the proclamations of the God of Israel if they think fit, but not represent his word as capable, like a sybilline oracle, of sustaining two directly opposite meanings. Then at last we should feel that we have to do with men of mettle, and not with mere word-fencers. Now there was no straw in the composition of Goliath of Gath. "He was every inch a man," of the Philistine, or Mr. Warleigh would probably remind us, of the Nephelim type. He wore no buckram for defence, and he wielded no bulrush for a lance. His sword was of true Tyrian brass, an incomparable weapon by David's own admission; "there was none like it," said he on a subsequent occasion: and had he not anticipated its fell swoop by a coup de main which only your true David knows how to deliver, the daughters of Judah might for many a day longer have had to exchange the timbrel and dance for a chorus of grief.

And not even David's skill would have availed him had he spent his shot on a paste-board giant instead of a hero as real as himself. Modern tactitians know this full well, and forthwith set about caricaturing the object, the aim, the motive, and even the language, of the advocates of Life in Christ, in order that in the eyes of the gregarious multitude the crusaders may seem to be smiting at a shadow instead of assailing the heart. The heart of society nevertheless has been reached by the declarative action recently taken; of which no better evidence is needed than has already been furnished by the malignity which that action at once evoked at the hand both of false friend and open foe.

Still we wait the advent and the onset of the real champion. We care not for the huge pepper-box carried by skirmishers of the Barker class, however diligently applied to the eyes of the young and unsuspecting. It has done the priests some service in the dark ages, but its further application will be resented with indignation. It is now quite too late in the day for Christian teachers (so called) to fetch their material from quasi-metaphysics, or to invite us to traverse again the forsaken hunting-grounds of mythological tradition, from which the last head of game has long ago disappeared, and where not even the "rats and mice and such small deer" which sufficed for "poor Tom's fare" will again reward the trapper's toil. (See three recent papers in the Baptist Magazine, by Mr. W. Barker, Baptist minister of Hastings, in opposition to Dr. Petavel.)

All this is beginning to be recognised and felt by some of our more masculine opponents, who are struck dumb in the presence of facts which they cannot arrest, and which they are too honourable to ignore. Inferior agencies nevertheless are still actively working their wayward will among a population who prefer to do all their thinking by proxy; and among these the strategy of diverting our fire by the use of sham batteries will always be a favourite one. We are persistently accused, for instance (and this, in default of higher game, is the point to which attention will now be directed), of invading the cherished

prerogative of an endless existence, so dear to the heart of fallen man; though it is well known that fallen man wherever he is found upon the face of the earth practically disavows it, and unmistakably exhibits a tendency in the opposite direction. Of all the men of straw set up for our gaping adoration, this of man's longing after immortality is one of the most inflated, meretricious, and successful. Nor is it a fair defence of the position to say that the nobler spirits "whose vision has been purged by the euphrasy and rue of philosophic contemplation" do ofttimes aspire to a more sublimated and imperishable condition. The Bible message is directed to man as he is, to man in the aggregate; it is an invitation to the lost to come home, and a challenge to the most debased to rise higher than the stars. But if fallen man decline the overture, then what becomes of his lofty prerogative? Here stands the enigma of the ages. He has immortality; what will he do with it? If speechless himself beneath the crushing incubus, ask his instructors who are for ever dinning the fact into his aching ears. They classify him with the immortal gods; but where, oh where, do they land him? Why, it is a notorious fact that the loudest defenders of his right contrive for the most part to land him, together with his prerogative, in the bottomless pit; and then, heedless of the affront which they have offered to God and man, wipe their hands, turn up the whites of their eyes, stroke their beards; and say, "We have done no wickedness." Some indeed refuse to land him anywhere, and prefer to see him drifting up and down in an Arctic fog, or floating in some hazy fallacy of their own creation which is meant to look exceedingly luminous and Elysian, but is in reality a darkness that may be felt. As for any terra firma on which a man may plant his foot with some sense of security, they declare that no such coast was ever meant to be sighted, and that Pharos, pole-star, and chart are alike popular delusions. No sooner has it been demonstrated with Minton-ian energy and power of language that the behests of God are clear and unmistakable, that his declarations are made in good faith, and that his revealed Word was never designed to hood-wink or mislead his poor helpless creatures, than these fantastic teachers at once unfurl the "Know Nothing" ensign, and proclaim their preference for the phosphorescent. mirage of an indolent hope. Well then, let them enjoy their hope, and make the best they can of it. Be it ours to recognise in the ineffable gift of Life the well-defined channel only of blessedness, to substitute a rock for shifting sand, and invite all men to build thereon. And should such reception of the gift summon us to a more lavish sacrifice of the flesh than is dreamt of in their philosophy, let us not shrink, in the absence of the miraculous gifts possessed by the early church, from the only means apparently left us of bearing witness to the resurrection of the Lord.

But now, in resuming our theme, let us list to the siren song so oft quoted by the sophists without its attendant qualification,-"What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!" Thus hath it been said or sung time out of mind. And then think of his inalienable immortality; who shall venture to assail this illustrious prerogative of living as long