PAROCHIAL SERMONS.

THUS, brethren, does old age end; and not old age only-thus will soon end the history of us all. The former part of this chapter may be applicable to very few of us. It exhibits a picture of man in his latter days. It describes him as gradually sinking under the weight of years, and the infirmities of dissolving nature. These we may never experience; for we may die before the "evil days" come, which bring them. But die when we may, this will be the close, the winding up, of our earthly history, "The dust shall return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”

We have here for our consideration, first, the two parts of which we are all composed, and, secondly, their different destinations when they are separated.

form that common, but mysterious piece of workmanship, which we call man.

1. By the dust we are undoubtedly to understand the body, that part of us which may be seen and felt. And it is called by this humiliating name partly on account of its origin. "Of the dust of the ground" did the Lord God form man. He could have formed him without this dust, without any materials whatsoever; but to keep him low, to mortify the pride of his vain descendants, he took the meanest substance that the earth could furnish, and moulded that into the shape of man. Hence we are said

to dwell "in houses of clay;" the habitation of our spirit is called an "earthly house;" its "foundation is in the dust," and of dust are its walls composed.

This expression may refer also to the perishable nature of our bodies. They are not formed of materials that are strong and lasting, of brass, or iron, or stone. Then we might have defied the hand of violence and of time. But we are dust, one of the lightest and most unstable of all substances. One moment, it lies before us in our path; the next, a breath of wind removes it, and scatters it at its will.

I. What is man? Have you ever asked yourselves this question? If you have se- And what are we, but creatures born to riously done so, it has perplexed and bewil- perish? so liable to frailty and change, that dered you. We know not what we are. we are said to be "made subject" to vaniAll that we can learn about ourselves, is ty? Vanity has a dominion over us, and no more than the simple fact with which we are every moment feeling its power. every child is acquainted, that we are Nay, we are vanity itself, and that not in our made up of a body and a soul; that we worst condition only, amidst the ravages of are composed of two very different parts, disease and the weakness of age, in our which became connected we know not" best estate" we are altogether vanity." when, and affect one another we know not A wind passes over us, and we are gone. how. They are called in the text "the Hence Job connects our frailty with our dust" and "the spirit." These two united earthly origin. No sooner has he spoken

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origin, brought into existence by the imme. diate act of God. If formed of any materials, they are such as lie far beyond the

of our "houses of clay," than he says of us, "They are crushed before the moth. They are destroyed from morning to evening. They perish forever without any re-reach of man's discovery or conception; garding it." they are such perhaps as angels cannot comprehend.

But there is one idea more comprehended under this term-meanness, worthlessness. Nothing is of less value than dust. It is rudely trodden on by every foot. It is sometimes removed as a nuisance out of our path.

And what is the worth of these bodies of ours, which we pamper and adorn with so much care? True, they are the workmanship of God, monuments of the omnipotence which could build so wondrous a fabric from materials so vile; but they still are dust, composed of the same elements as the body of the meanest reptile, or a blade of grass. They are of importance to us now, because they are the tabernacles of the immortal soul; but separate them from that soul, take them when the spirit has forsaken them what is their value then? Our friends will tell-they will bury us out of their sight. In the very houses which we now call our own, we shall be denied a lodging. Loved or hated, a grave will be dug for us, and we shall be left in it in darkness and alone, valued only by the worm which takes us for its prey.

It

It is immortal. The body is of short duration. It soon arrives at its perfection, and soon decays: it may speedily be worn out. But the soul never dies. It may change; it may be enfeebled, or polluted, or degraded; but it cannot be destroyed. Even sin, which has withered its beauty, cannot put an end to its existence. Corruption and the worm cannot touch it. Amidst all the generations of time, all the ravages of death, all the vicissitudes of human things, it lives and acts. The wreck of a world can no more injure it, than the fall of a leaf in a distant forest can wound the eagle that is soaring in the skies.

Is not man then a mysterious being? Look at his body. How "fearfully and wonderfully" is it made! Composed of dust, and yet so contrived and framed, that the wisest of the sons of men cannot per. fectly learn its structure! He owns himself baffled as he studies it; and the more he studies it, the more is he lost in admiration at the number and variety of its parts. Every limb, every vessel, every movement within it, is an amazing proof, we might almost say, an amazing effort, of almighty power and skill.

But this is nothing when compared with the spirit. The one excites our admiration as we think of it; the other will not let us think of it. It is out of our reach. It mocks our efforts.

And then the union that exists between this moulded dust and the immortal spirit— how close is it! To affect the one is, in some degree, to affect the other. And this

2. But man is not all dust. "There is a spirit in him." And it is his own spirit; it forms a part of him. And what is the spirit? None but the living God can tell. It is that strange something within us, which no human eye has ever seen, but without which we can do nothing and are nothing, at least no more than a clod or a stone. dwells in the body, animates and rules it; but is not confined to it. Spurning the limits of time and space, it roves among the ages that are gone, as though it had lived in them. By the wings of its power-union is as strange as it is close. What is ful imagination, it flies to the remotest parts the tie which connects these two parts of of the earth, it ranges through the orbs of us? They are held together by the breath the sky; nay, it soars beyond them; it which is every moment passing to and fro rises to the great God himself, penetrates from our nostrils; at least, when that into that invisible eternity which he in- breath ceases to pass, their union ends. habits, and elevates, and expands, and transforms itself, by contemplating those glories which are at his right hand.

In its nature, it is altogether different from the other part of us. We know not how it was made, but we know that nothing on the earth was employed in the creation of it. It was altogether heavenly in its

We need not then look around us for wonders. We ourselves are wonders. The youngest child within these walls is enough to confound and humble an inquiring world.

II. But the two parts of which we are composed, though closely united, are not inseparable. A trifle can at any time sever

them. Sooner or later, they must be part ed. If disease or violence do not rend them asunder, as though weary of their union, they will separate of themselves. Let us then consider, in the second place, their destinations when we die.

We must not enter on this consideration, without remembering that we have now before us the most important inquiry which can possibly engage our thoughts. Be we in what state we may, it is certain that we cannot long continue in it. It must soon come to an end. We must undergo a change. And if the question, What will this change be? does not interest us, where is the question that ought to affect us?

1. We are reminded of the change which our bodies are destined to undergo. "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was;" that is, the body shall become just what it was before the hand of God modelled, and the living soul animated it. It was dust, and it shall turn to dust again. A humiliating and loathsome process shall mingle it with the clods of the valley, and give it to the winds of heaven.

of death as coming in what we call "the order of nature," and seem to regard it as a thing of course, as a part of the original portion and destination of our race. Thus we endeavor to conceal our shame. But as long as man continued sinless, death had no more power to touch his body, than it has now to destroy his soul. He became mortal when he became sinful. Dust he was; but it was not till he became rebellious dust, that he heard a voice saying to him, "Unto dust shalt thou return."

When therefore we see the shrouded corpse and the opened grave, it is vain, it is worse than vain, it is deceptive, to say, "See there the work of nature." Nature abhors the charge. That havoc is the work of sin. Yes, brethren, the pride, the sensuality, the worldly-mindedness, the self-will, the forgetfulness of God, which we make so light of these are the things which laid our fathers in the grave, and will soon lay us there. Their vileness, their guilt, their destructive power, are written in the ashes of all the dead, and will soon be written in our own. Such is the account scripture gives us of the matter; "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."

And must it really come to this? Must the forms that move around us, must the frames of our children and friends, that seem so firm, thus perish? They must. They may be very dear to us; as we look It is in vain that we object to this stateon them, they may appear so lovely and ment, that we charge this dispensation with strong, that we can hardly deem it true severity; the stubborn fact remains-all that death can harm them; but they will that ever lived, have died; and we, in the soon be gone, gone as a dream of the night midst of our objections and cavils, are hastor a shadow of the morning. We our-ening to the tomb. There is only one conselves shall follow them. We may go before them. Ere we are aware, weariness and pain may be exchanged for rottenness and dust. Our "time is appointed," our "months are numbered," even our "days are determined;" and when they are spent, we shall all lie cold at the root of the rocks, at the foot of the mountains.

But why is this? Why must the body, so curiously and exquisitely wrought, so much loved and cherished, be thus broken in pieces? We say, because it is mortal; but how came it mortal? Though but dust, yet it is not therefore of necessity perishable dust. The same Being who wrought it into the shape of man, could as easily preserve it in that shape, as he now destroys it.

The power which gave it life, is surely able to sustain it in never-fading vigor.

We often err in this matter. We talk

clusion to which a rational inquirer can come; it is this-Sin is a greater evil in the sight of God, than it is in mine. I have yet to learn its malignity. No heart can conceive aright of its terrors.

Such is the destination of the body, and such the cause of it.

2. Let us look now at the destination of the soul. "The spirit shall return unto God who gave it."

Here we are again baffled. Where is God? How does the spirit find him? By what strange means does it ascend to his abode ? We may ask these questions, but none can answer them. Probably the spirit itself could not, even after it has travelled this mysterious journey. It is certain that we, on this side of the grave, know nothing of the matter. We may think and talk about it, we may amuse ourselves and perplex others; but as for comprehending

it, we might as easily scale the heavens. | consequence? He knew that he should be We must end where we began-this is the "present with the Lord." extent of our knowledge-" The spirit shall return to God."

The Lord Jehovah always claims the spirit as his own. "All souls," he says, "are mine." If they are in a limited sense ours, they are so only because he has given them to us. He was at first "the Father of our spirits," for they came from his hand; and he is still their Lord. Hence when our bodies are about to turn to corruption, he recalls them to himself. He might still confine them in their wretched habitations; force them to linger among their mouldering ruins, and to witness their desolation; imprison them in a dead, as well as in a living frame: but he spares even the guilty this degradation. The body goes to the dust alone. The liberated spirit spurns the dust. Death beats down its prison walls, and then, like a captive exile, it hastens to be free, and a moment takes it to its native skies.

O what a solemn thought is this! Who has not been thrilled by it, as he has heard the breath go forth from some fellow-worm? And who can resist its power, when he ap plies it to himself? Brethren, you are liv ing just as near to eternity as you are to the grave. The hour of your entering into heaven or being cast into hell, is not one moment further off than the hour of your own death. If you die to-day, where will to-morrow find your spirit? Not hovering over its deserted clay; not mingling unseen with your children and friends, to sooth itself with their sorrow for loss. your it will be among eternal joys or eternal sor rows; far from all the abodes of men; i the midst of the pardoned and glorified, of among the condemned and lost. It will be one of these inhabitants of eternity; taking its share either in their wailings or in their triumphant songs.

For mark-the return of the spirit to God is represented here as immediate. It takes place at the very instant when the "silver cord" is loosed, and "the wheel" of life stopped. Superstition, or vanity, or affection, may for a long time keep the body, at least a part of it, from its destined home; but nothing can detain or delay the soul. God says, "Return!" and ere the word has gone forth from his mouth, he sees it naked before his throne. This truth should correct an error into which many of us are very prone to fall. We often look on the realities of eternity as very distant from us. We think that between us and the awful scenes we have heard of, many hundred years of insensibility and nothingness will intervene; that our souls will sleep in some unknown land, till the close of all things. But where have we learned this notion? Not from the Bible. There is not a single declaration in that sacred book, which can sanction it. On the contrary, there are many passages which go directly against it. "This day shalt thou be with me in paradise," said our Lord to the malefactor who was dying at his side; and in what state there? Senseless and lifeless? No; alive to its glories, transported with its blessedness. And when Paul thought of being "absent from the body," what did he connect with his absence? What did he look on as its immediate and necessary

No:

Hence we may observe that it is no light or trifling purpose, for which "the spirit re turns to the God who gave it." It goes to him to give an account of all it has though and felt, and done, while in the flesh; of the use it has made of its own powers, and of the powers of that body over which it has ruled. He sent it here that it might know. and love, and serve him; he sends for again at death, to inquire whether it has fulfilled its work. It goes to him therefor to be judged, to appear at his bar and re ceive its sentence; and then to enter on its final home. If found in Christ, clothed in his righteousness and purified by his Spirit it will dwell in a world where it shall sor row no more, fear no more, be unsatisfie no more. If found out of Christ, risin from its earthly tenement with the stains sin polluting it, and the guilt of unpardone sin testifying against it, it will be "driver away in its wickedness,' "far from the "presence of the Lord and the glory of his power."

The

We see then that each part of us goes to its own place when we die; each "returns is restored to its original source. earth opens its bosom to receive its due, and it does receive it; earth is given to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The great God claims the spirit; it goes to him he takes it, and disposes of it as he will. And in the destination of both, he magnifies his own great name. The body, as it per

ishes, declares his holiness in one world, | world a thing of naught? If not, what can while the soul, if lost, reveals it in another. we say to you? What does conscience If saved, it is saved "to the praise of the say? "Thou fool!" glory of his grace. It shines forth in the heavens, the brightest monument there of his unsearchable love.

This then is the view which this text affords us of our approaching destination. It warrants us in coming to this conclusionThere are events about to take place in our history, of far greater importance to us than any we have yet experienced. I speak not of the success or failure of our earthly schemes, of changes in our worldly condition or circumstances, of sudden riches or sudden poverty, of the loss of children, or parents, or kindred. I speak of what this text foretells, of the falling into dust of the very bodies which are here assembled, of the departure of your soul and my soul into the presence of its Judge.

And who can tell us what this presence is? As we think of it, the sinking of the body into dust is forgotten. To appear before the great and hitherto unseen Jehovah -to see him eye to eye and face to face, who formed the worlds and all that dwell in them to stand before infinite majesty, and purity, and justice-to be in a world of spirits, and we ourselves also to be spiritsto hear a voice consigning us, and that forever, to happiness we have never yet been able to conceive of, or to misery that even guilty man, in his wretchedness here, has never known-who is not bewildered at the thought? And yet this very appearance before God we must experience; this bewildering, overwhelming thought we must realize. There is no prospect, no possibility, of our escaping it. We shall as surely face our Judge in eternity, as we now behold one another here. And we may be called on to face him in an instant. Our soul is kept from returning to him-by what? by a little dust; by a body so frail, so easily dissolved, and liable to so many dangers, that they who know its structure best, wonder the most that it holds together for an hour.

There is something awful in the prospect of eternity even to the man who has been all his life long preparing to enter it, and who knows that, in any world or in any state, he is safe in Christ. This very day, as he has thought of it, he has prayed, if not trembled. And yet you, unprepared, unready, are at ease. There is something far more appalling in this unconcern, than in any scene which an open grave could show. That is the triumph of sin over a heap of dust; this is its triumph over an immortal spirit. And if this victory be so dreadful here, in a world of mercy, judge for yourselves, what will it be in a world of wrath? O that we may seek of the living God a heart to fear its terrors!

But what is the language of this text to the faithful servants of Christ? It says to them, Be serious, be sober, be in earnest. Sit loose to the world. Think much of death. Look for it. Be every hour prepared to meet your God. "Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning, and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord."

But this is not all. Though it does not speak expressly the language of consolation, yet it reminds us of many things that ought to cheer us.

True, the dust must "return to the earth as it was ;" and we may be content to let it go there. Our Bibles tell us that it is a vile body," a body of humiliation; and such we have found it. Its weakness and disease have often chilled, and fettered, and clogged our souls; and what have its lusts and vile affections done? They have forced us to hate ourselves; they have made us weep and groan. And shall we repine at the prospect of escaping from such a body as this? O no, not if we were never to see it again. But we shall see it again, and dwell in it again. To the earth it must go, and lie there for a time in dishonor and ruin; but what says the scripBrethren, what think you of these things? ture? "This corruptible shall put on inthese certain, and important, and probably corruption, this mortal shall put on immornear events which are coming on you? tality." In some mysterious manner, these Are you prepared for them? Have they frames of ours, which death shall break occupied your attention, and interested your down, and worms destroy, and winds scat. feelings, and influenced your conduct? ter-these very bodies shall be raised; Have they made the gospel most welcome they shall live again, as really and as to you, the Saviour most precious, the vigorously as they are living now. The