Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/138

 means impairs the functions or mutilates the form of the soul, because its nature is definitely distinct from matter, and perfectly independent of it. This is why the Scriptures so frequently speak of it as the subject of "everlasting life;" for this fact necessarily excludes the possibility of any interruption to its being.

The soul is that which the apostle designates the "spiritual body." "There is," says he, "a natural body and there is a spiritual body;" not that there is a natural body which is to become a spiritual body at some future time, but that they are two distinct coeval existences. The natural body he sometimes calls "the natural" and the "outward man;" and the spiritual body he sometimes calls the "inner" and "the inward man;" and that he regarded the former as for ever put aside by death, and the latter as for ever a living spiritual realty, is evident from his statement, "Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." It is the spirit that really lives; mere natural substance is always dead; and although, when in certain organizations it appears to live, it is only gifted with that appearance for a time by the spirituality that is within it. It is of the soul that the Lord said it should "never see death," "never taste of death," should "never die," should "have everlasting life." The soul is the spiritual man, and is that which, having once begun to live, can never die. Man cannot put himself out of existence; he may, if he be sufficiently wicked or insane, put his natural body to death, but the soul will live in defiance of every effort at such