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not with "spirits." It is the _men_ who are made perfect to whom we are
said to have come. But there are only two localities and two periods, in
which men are anywhere in the Scriptures said to be made perfect. One is
in this life and on this earth, and refers to religious experience ("Be ye
therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect");
the other is not relative, but actual and absolute, and refers to the
future immortal state when all the people of God will enter upon eternal
life together ("God having provided some better thing for us, that they
[the ancient worthies] without us should not be _made perfect_." Heb.
11:40). Thus, taken in either of the only two ways possible, the text
furnishes no proof of Spiritualism. It doubtless refers to the present
state, the expression, "spirits of just men," being simply a periphrasis
for "just men," the same as the expression, "the God of the spirits of all
flesh" (Num. 16:22), means simply "the God of all flesh," and the words
"your whole spirit, and soul, and body" (1 Thess. 5:23), means simply the
whole person.

4. _Spirits in Prison._--The apostle Peter uses an expression, which,
though perhaps not often quoted in direct defense of Spiritualism, is
relied upon extensively in behalf of the doctrine of the conscious state
of the dead, which, as already shown, is the essential basis of
Spiritualism. And such texts as these are here noticed to show to the
general reader, that the Bible contains no testimony in behalf of that
doctrine, but positively forbids it, as further quotations will soon be
introduced to show. The passage now in question is 1 Peter 3:19, where,
speaking of Christ, it says: "By which also he went and preached unto the
spirits in prison." By the use of strong assumption, and some lofty
flights of the imagination, and keeping in the background the real intent
of the passage, a picture of rather a lively time in the spirit world, can
be constructed out of this testimony. Thus the spirits are said to be the
disembodied spirits of those who were destroyed by the flood. See context.
They were in "prison," that is, in hell. When Christ was put to death upon
the cross, he immediately went by his disembodied spirit, down into hell
and preached to t