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A SERMON,

BY THE REV. THOMAS DALE, M.A.

PREACHED AT ST. BRIDE'S CHURCH, FLEET STREET, ON SUNDAY MORNING, FEB. 19, 1843.*

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."Genesis iii. 19.

As in the natural, so also in the spiri- | From Him, and from Him only, can we tual world, the field of human vision is learn, either the purpose of our original necessarily limited. Were one to ascend formation, or the nature of our ulterior the summit of the loftiest eminence, and destinies. Experience of ourselves will look down upon the most level region of tell us, that "dust we are;" observation the continent, or across the widest ex- of others will tell us, that "to dust shall panse of the most calm and unruffled we return;" but at whose lips, save those ocean, there would be, at whatever dis- of God, are we to seek for enlightenment tance, a horizon or boundary all around. as to the future and eternal destinies of He might continue in one spot through-the soul, when, after the body has "reout one day; he might behold the chariot turned to the earth as it was," "the spirit of the sun, rising upon the far range shall return unto Himself who gave it?" of the mountains, describe its course True it is, that the text from which I upon the firmament, and hide itself am now to address you, touches only the again beneath the undulations of the facts which concern the mortal, and treats western wave; but while he marked the not of the mysteries, which pertain to position and bearing of every object with- the immortal part of man. Those facts in his ample range, he could neither pe- are, that man was taken out of the netrate beyond it, nor yet could he ra- ground; that he will return in the end to tionally doubt, that the light, which de- the dust, out of which he was taken; and parted from that scene, rose on other that God hath, in the mean time, "given fields of view, as varied and expansive, a sore travail to the sons of men to be exas that on which he himself had gazed. ercised therewith." It is literally true of So it is in things spiritual. Light dawns the majority of human kind, that " with the creation, it expires with the dis- the sweat of their face do they eat bread;' solution of the universe, that system of and it may be reasonably doubted, whethings and of beings, of which we form a ther the absence of toil in the case of part; revelation describes in Scripture those who are born to independence or the circumference of our mental range; to affluence, is not more than compenbut who can rationally doubt, that a sated by that weariness and vexation of Being of perfect intelligence, who is spirit, that consciousness of the vanity and neither confined to time nor circum- uncertainty of all things here below. from scribed by space, can at once look back- which the incessant labour of the hands ward or from everlasting, and forward or must deliver, in great measure, those to everlasting?-who can doubt, that to whose daily toil is their daily sustenance. such a Being there can be no limit, no "The sleep of a labouring man is sweet,' boundary, no horizon; that to Him, all said Solomon, "whether he eat little or time should be what we designate as Now, much; but the abundance of the rich will and all space what we express as HERE? not suffer him to sleep." These facts of our text, however, though immediately concerning the mortal, are yet intimately connected with the mysteries that pertain to the immortal. We are, indeed, told,

This consideration, then, it is, which must in spiritual things detach us as mortal beings from ourselves, and cast us, as immortal beings, upon God.

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*The Sunday after the funeral of a near relative of the preacher. On the preceding Sunday, Feb. 12, the Rev. John Natt, Vicar of St. Sepulchre's parish, (of which Mr. Dale is Lecturer,) having returned home after preaching in the morning in his usual health, suddenly fell and expired.

in a passage preceding the text, and to left only to analogies from reason, howwhich it obviously refers, that "the Lord ever accurate, or to inferences from a God formed man of the dust of the part of revelation, however probable. ground;" but then we are also told, that "God, who at sundry times and in divers He "breathed into his nostrils the breath manners spake in time past unto the faof life, and man became a living soul;" thers by the prophets, hath in these last while we are further apprised and certi- days spoken unto us by His Son." And fied of the reason wherefore this union of the language in which He has spoken, lifeless matter and of living spirit, seem- ensures not only an eventual resurrection, ingly so incongruous, was designed. God in which the connection between soul and said, in that mysterious council, which body shall be renewed, the corruptible first conveys to us, by direct and neces- having put on incorruption, and the morsary implication, the doctrine of three Di-tal having put on immortality; but it envine Persons in one perfect essence, and sures what is more-a continual and unaccording, though incomprehensible mind intermitted consciousness to the soul of Deity-God said, “Let us make man itself. It ensures, first, an eventual rein our image, after our likeness;" and surrection to the body; for "the hour is from all that we can discern of the God-coming,' ," and in the purpose of God head, as developed to us in the Word of "now is," "in the which all that are in God, we know that of that image and of the graves shall hear His voice, and that likeness, the two essential features, shall come forth; they that have done and the two indispensable attributes, are good, unto the resurrection of life; and intelligence and immortality. they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." It ensures, moreover, a continual and unintermitted con

Hence, with the fact of the material, is connected palpably the mystery of the intelligent; and with the fact of the cor-sciousness to the soul, which, though seruptible, the mystery of the immortal. It parated from the body, is an unsuspended, is a fact, that "the reasonable soul and even when a disembodied intelligence; flesh are one man;" it is a fact also, that for "I," said the Lord, "am the resurthe reasonable soul is altogether distinct rection, and the life; he that believeth in from the material flesh-(or, wherefore Me, though he were dead, yet shall he should the one depart we know not live and whosoever liveth and believeth whither, while the other remains, to all in Me, shall never die."

outward appearance, still unchanged?) Now these two things-the final resurand it is a fact, too, that after the depar-rection of the body, and the immediate ture of the reasonable soul, which is the consciousness of the soul after deathimage and likeness of God, the body ought to be viewed together. For it is espespeedily becomes the prey of corruption, and therefore cannot be the image of Him, who is incorruptible. "It lieth down in the dust and the worms do cover it."

As, then, the body cannot exist without the soul, the soul is necessarily the man; and having, while united to the body, displayed one of God's attributes intelligence, would it not be, even upon reasonable grounds, and were our knowledge confined to the small portion of Divine revelation, which has preceded my text, at least a fair and probable inference, that when separated from the body, it should partake the other Divine attribute, which is immortality? Yes, and more than this-that the very fact of its being separated from the fleshly tabernacle, should only increase and enhance its likeness to God, who "is a Spirit."

We are not, however, in a concern of such grave and overwhelming moment,

cially worthy of remark, that the words just quoted, were addressed to one, who was already a believer in the former doctrine, the doctrine of the resurrection. The Lord Jesus, it will be remembered, after He had received intimation, that Lazarus, whom He loved, was sick, and though He was earnestly entreated by the devotedly attached sisters, Mary and Martha, to visit them in their affliction, purposely delayed His coming till Lazarus was dead. When Martha, therefore, heard of the Lord's arrival, she hastened to meet Him, and greeted Him in words, which, while expressing unbounded confidence and love, almost implied reproach-" Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died; but I know, that even now, whatsoever Thou wilt ask of God, God will give it Thee." The answer of the Lord was most impressive in its brevity—“ Thy brother shall rise again." "I know,"

Martha replied, "that he shall rise again | with men are possible with God?" This in the resurrection at the last day."hope was so strong in the apostle Paul, Thus, while declaring her belief in an that it amounted even to confidence-to eventual resurrection, she intimated that assurance. He "desired to depart and she considered her brother to be meantime in a state of sleep, a state of unconsciousness and of unintelligence: dead, not only to her and to her sister, but dead to the concerns and beings of the invisible world; dead not only to her, but to God. Then it was, that the Lord, in the words already cited,-words of inestimable consolation, which our Church repeats when the grave is about to close over the remains of those, who were nearest and dearest to us upon earth-then it was, that the Lord declared in effect, that her belief, though just and accurate as far as it extended, yet stopped short of the reality. "I," He said "I am the resurrection and the life;" thou believest in a resurrection-"I am the resurrection;" ;""He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me, shall never die; believest thou this" also? "Yea, Lord," is the meek and prompt reply; 'I do believe it, because Thou declarest it, for "I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world." This, moreover, was not the first, nor the only time, that the Lord had taught this same glorious and inestimable truth. For what other construction can be put upon His explicit declaration to the Sadducees-"God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live unto Him ?"

to be with Christ, which was far better;" he knew, that "when his earthly house of this tabernacle was dissolved, he had a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Yet to him, as to ourselves, the precise mode of accomplishing this hope was enveloped in the profoundest mystery. He himself declared, "Hope, that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." The same uncertainty as to the process overhung another of this "glorious company of the apostles," who yet desired for himself, with the heart-sickness of "hope deferred," the coming of the Lord-"Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly;" while to the Church he said-" Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not ye appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."

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While, therefore, we look forward to a reunion between the reasonable, immaterial, immortal soul, and that body, once its tenement and receptacle, which, moulded out of dust, has unto dust returned, we have the assurance, secret as to the process, but explicit as to the fact, not only that the believer in Christ Jesus shall rise again, but that he shall " die;" that he shall "live to God." Just I know not, therefore, why we should as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are now be concerned to express, or even how it is living-Abraham, in whose bosom the possible to express, the state of the reason-long-tried and afflicted Lazarus found able soul after death, in a phrase of more consciousness of blessed repose. Just as clear, more pregnant, more consoling the Lord Jesus himself, after He had laid import, than this" living unto God:" aside this mortal body, lived until the re"living in Christ;" never dying," sumption of it; lived the life, of which He but "sleeping in Jesus," and yet at the said to the repentant and pardoned malesame time" living unto God." There is, factor, "This day shalt thou be with Me undoubtedly, much of difficulty in con- in paradise." The believer, closing his ceiving of existence apart from the body, eyes upon this world and all its inhabitwhen our only experience is of existence ants and concerns, shall yet live, as the associated with the body; but if we know, first martyr Stephen expected to live, (and we do know both from reason and when he poured forth his dying prayerfrom revelation,) that a mighty advance" Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' is thus made in conformity to the image of Him, who is "without body, parts, or passions," then what more can we need for our assurance and comfort of hope, than is included in the emphatic saying, that "the things which are impossible

VOL. XIV.

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shall live as St. Peter expected to live, when he had "put off this his earthly tabernacle, according as the Lord Jesus had showed him ;" and showed him too in the emphatic words" Whither I go thou canst not follow Me now, but thou

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shalt follow Me afterwards.” He shall of all things. Such, at least, is the judg

live as St. Paul expected to live, when he ment of our Church, upon scriptural evi"departed to be with Christ;" when dence; for she declares, in a service still "absence from the body" should have fresh in my remembrance, that "the become "presence with the Lord;" when souls of the faithful, after they have been the "light affliction, which was but for a delivered from the burden of the flesh, moment," should have "wrought out for are in joy and felicity with Almighty him a far more exceeding and eternal God;" and in points where Scripture is weight of glory;" when he should him- accordant with her judgment, (though in self be one of those bright "cloud of the opinion of some, not explicit in its witnesses," who even then encompassed own,) we cannot but attach the most the Hebrew Christians round about, and grave importance to the deliberate opiwho had received the foretaste, if not the nion of the Church. We are not, howcompletion of the promises. For believ-ever, of the number of those, who can, ers are exhorted to run the race;" and as to this, see any want of explicitness in what is the end of a race, but a crown? Scripture. We consider, that while in They are enjoined to "run the race set several of the instances already cited, the before them, looking unto Jesus, the doctrine of our Church is indeed deAuthor and Finisher of their faith ;" and clared, in others it is necessarily implied. is this, think you, that when the body As where, for example, St. Paul speaks of returns to the dust, the soul may sink into believers as "fellow-citizens with the a sleep of ages? Is this, that their saints, and of the household of God;" faith may be "finished" in a state of un- can there be any fellowship with those, consciousness, which shall endure until who are in a state of unconsciousness? the morning of the resurrection? They So again, when he terms the Church to whom Messiah had graciously said, "the whole family in heaven and earth, "Because I live, ye shall live also," which is named of Christ;" can any one could they have expected thus to live persuade us, or can any one persuade Would this be to "overcome death" and himself, either that "the family in heabring life and immortality to light?" ven" denotes the angels, who yet are not Would this draw forth the triumphant in any special sense "named of Christ," exclamation, "O death, where is thy or that if " the family in heaven" are sting? O grave, where is thy victory ?" saints, they are saints in a state of slumWould this consist with the fervent attes- ber and insensibility, while we who are tation of the apostle, "Nay, in all these on earth are in comparison awake and acthings we are more than conquerors, tive, glorifying God and serving Christ? through Him that loved us?" Is this Still more, when St. Paul declares to the consistent with the spirit of his expecta- Hebrew Christians, in the glowing lantion, that "mortality should be swal-guage, of ecstatic transport, "Ye are lowed up of life?"

So far, then, as the testimony of Divine revelation extends, whether from the expectations which were cherished by the apostles, or the assurances which are addressed to ourselves, we anticipate a continuance of life after death to the soul, just as we anticipate the certainty of dissolution to the body-the soul which is the image of God, while the body was formed out of dust. "As in Adam all die, so," we believe," in Christ, shall all be made alive;" and to be "made alive" in Christ, though we know not precisely the full import of the phrase, must surely be very different from the unconscious slumber of a thousand years, or of a hundred centuries, or of any interval which might elapse between the hour of the soul's departure, and the consummation

come to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect;" can we imagine, that this imputed perfection is compatible with a state of temporary unconsciousness? Would such a mode of speech be worthy, in our esteem, of the majesty of God, or intelligible to the capacity of man? Assuredly, the chief likeness of the soul to Him, in whose image it was originally made, must consist in the fact, that like Him, it never dies. "The spirit returns to God who gave it ;" and if the veil is here dropped, enough remains at least to prove, that it does not return to Him who "never slumbereth nor sleepeth," to the intent that it may itself "slumber and sleep.'

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Leaving this, therefore, as sufficiently

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established, and requiring no further de- I to solace, and forward upon eternity with monstration, let us now confine ourselves nought to hope? Oh! do not put these to the practical portion of the subject. questions from yourselves, as questions Let me address myself to you as those, which none can answer, inasmuch as we who, like myself, are marked for death; know not the day nor the hour when as those who, like myself, "know neither the Son of man cometh;" for there is one the day nor the hour wherein the Son of thing which we do know, we know how inan cometh;"as those, to whom postpone He will expect to find us when He ment of the preparation must be perilous, comes, we know "what we must do to and procrastination of it may be fatal. inherit everlasting life," and we know "To day, if ye will hear His voice, har- that the fault is, and that the penalty den not your hearts." Incompetent as must be, all our own, if we wilfully leave ye are to deny that most certain of facts this undone. "It is appointed unto man once to die," oh! do not be tempted to defer your preparation for a fact, which is only less certain because it lacks the testimony of experience "After death the judgment." Let me entreat you to look now, admonished as ye have been by the visitations of Divine providence all around you, by the prevalence of disease, of disaster, and of death,-let me entreat you to look into the state of your own reckoning with God; and oh! do not rest satisfied, until conscience will allow you to believe, that you do indeed resemble those, who, "with their loins girt and their lights burning,” are waiting for the coming of the Lord, "that when He knocketh, they may open to Him immediately.” "Blessed is that servant," and he alone, "whom his Lord, when He cometh, shall find so doing."

Let us, then, admonished as we are by the remembrance of the dead, who have lately been the living, and conscious as we are, that we ourselves, though now with the living, may ere long be among the dead,—let us "examine ourselves whether we be in the faith." Let us determine, whether our religion is in name and in word, or in deed and in power. Let us decide whether we are employing our Master's talent in our Master's service, "redeeming the time because the days are evil," and "working out our own salvation with fear and trembling," knowing that "it is God who worketh in us to will and to do of His good pleasure." And that we may be the more disposed to do this, let us consider, that he who is unprepared for death, can realise but a part even of the lawful and innocent enjoyments of life. "Whoso hearkeneth How, then, shall He find you?-you unto Me," said the heavenly Wisdom, who know, that even in the perfection of" shall be quiet from fear of evil.” strength and in the fulness of intellect, And who does not know, that the conwhen every member of the body and sciousness of safety is the essence of enwhen every faculty of the mind is in vi-joyment? that security from peril is ingorous and healthful exercise, "dust ye dispensable to peace? If "dust we are, are," and that when ye are least expect- and unto dust we must return," at least ing and most unprepared, if ye are ever let us provide, while we may, for that unprepared, "unto dust ye may return." which is not-which never was-which How shall He find you? Will ye "have never shall be “dust :" that which is the confidence, and not be ashamed before living image and likeness of the everHim at His coming?" Will the summons living God; that which does share His which must under any circumstances intelligence, and which shall share His be solemn and startling, be fraught to you immortality. "I am the resurrection and with desolation and despair; or will the the life," saith the Lord; he that beterrors, with which death must ever believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet apparelled and encircled, be tempered, if shall he live; and whosoever liveth and not averted, by "a good hope through believeth in Me, shall never die. Begrace"-a "hope that is full of immorta-lievest thou this?" If thou dost, oh! lity?" When ye are brought within a near view of the dark valley of the shadow of death," will ye be enabled to say, "Yet do I fear no evil; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me?" or will ye be "utterly consumed with terrors,' ," looking backward upon time with nought'

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what is there that can equal-what is there that can approach-the magnitude, the momentousness, the immensity of the great concern, whether thou hast "passed from death unto life," whether thy name is written in the book of the Lamb, whether thou art now fully prepared for either

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