There could hardly be a plainer testimony that man as a whole is mortal and perishable. He is born of corruptible seed. But more than this, it is added, “All flesh is as grass.” Should it be said that this means simply the body, we reply that the term flesh is frequently used in the New Testament to signify the whole man. Thus, Rom. 3:20: “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified.” Paul does not here talk about the justification of bones, sinews, nerves and muscles; he refers to the whole responsible man. In the same sense the term is used in many other passages. But Peter himself, in the passage just quoted, cuts off its application exclusively to the body; for after saying that “all flesh is as grass,” he continues, “and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.” The glory of man must include all that there is noble and exalted about his nature. If the soul is the highest and most godlike part of man, it is included in this glory; but lo! it is all like the flower of the grass, transitory and perishable. The word mortal, which means liable to death, occurs five times in our English version, and in every instance is used to describe the nature of the real man. Rom. 6:12; 8:11; 1 Cor. 15:53, 54; 2 Cor. 4:11. It occurs in the original in one other instance (2 Cor. 5:4) where it is rendered “mortality.” The texts usually relied on to prove that souls are immediately created are Eccl. 12:7; Isa. 57:16; Zech. 12:1. The first of these was examined in the last chapter. The word translated “form” in the last of these passages, as shown in this present chapter, is not a word that signifies to create, but only to put into form, mold, and fashion. Isa. 57:16, speaks of the souls which God has made. But there are numerous other texts, as Job 10:8-11; Isa. 44:2; 64:8; Jer. 1:5, &c., which speak in the same manner of the body. But if such expressions can be used with respect to the body, produced by the natural process of generation, the same expression with reference to the soul contains no proof that that is not also transmitted with the body. God said to our first parents, and the commission was repeated to Noah after the flood, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Multiply what? Themselves, of course. Did that mean that they should multiply bodies, and God would multiply souls to fit them? Nothing of the kind; but they were to multiply beings having all the characteristics, endowments, and attributes of themselves. So Adam, Gen. 5:3, “begat a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth.” This son was like Adam in all respects, having all the natures that Adam possessed; and that which was begotten by Adam was called Seth. But according to the doctrine of creationism, Adam begat only a body, and God created a soul, which is the real man, and called his name Seth, and put it into that body. Neither this text nor any other gives countenance to any such absurdity.