CHAPTER V.
THE DEATH OF THE NATURAL BODY, AND THE RESURRECTION OF MAN.
THE ARGUMENT.—Resurrection implies a death.—Death, the one great certainty, so far as the natural side of existence is concerned.—The fear of death the common inheritance of men.—Death not feared by animals.—This fear contrary to the Divine intention.—The source of this fear, and how it is to be avoided.—Death, a term only applicable to the natural body.—Man lives after the body dies.—The
soul and body never designed for a perpetnal conjunction.—The body not immortal.—The death, which is a consequence of disobedience, is sin.—Natural death in the world before man entered into it.— Illustration.— Sin, that which renders death a painful experience.— The separation of the soul from the body not an evil.—This separation must be effected before entering upon the full enjoyment of true spiritual life-—Death lays aside the natural body, never to be resumed.—The cause of the difficulty of believing that the soul will live without the natural body, explained.—The soul, the real man and the spiritual body which passes into the world of , spirits when the natural body dies.—Illustration from historical | parts of Scripture, showing that resurrections must have taken place without the resumption of the natural body.—Other arguments, showing the impossibility of raising natnral bodies after death.— What is meant by the assertion that all things are possible with God.—Passages from the Old Testament, once supposed to treat of a natural resurrection, are not considered to do so by modern critics.—Orthodox admissions on the subject.— Passages from the New Testament examined, and shown not to treat of the resur rection of the natural body.—The argument of Paul, 1 CorinthJans xv., examined.
If it be true, as we believe, that it is the soul which is the subject of Divine judgment, and that the world of spirits
