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SERMON 164

THE IMMEDIATE CONSEQUENCES OF DEATH.

Then Shall The Dust Return To The Earth As It Was, And The Spirit Shall Return To God Who Gave It. - Ecclesiastes 12:7.

IN my last Discourse I made several observations concerning Death, considered as the last dispensation of Providence to man in the present world. The immediate consequences of death furnish the next subject of our investigation.

In the text we are told, that when ‘man goeth to his long home, the dust, (or body,) shall return to the earth,’ of which it was formed, and that then also ‘the spirit shall return to God who gave it.’ In considering this subject, I shall follow the order of discourse here presented to us; and examine those things which immediately after death respect,

I. The body.
II. The soul.

Under the former of these heads, I observe,

I. The body.

1. That the body is changed into a corpse.

Death is the termination of all the animal functions of our nature. So long as these continue, life, the result of them, diffuses warmth, activity, and beauty throughout our frame. In this state, the body is a useful as well as pleasing habitation for the soul; and a necessary as well as convenient instrument for accomplishing the purposes to which it is destined in the present world. But when these functions cease, life also ceases. The body then becomes cold, motionless, deformed, and useless. The form, which once gave pleasure to all around it, now creates only pain and sorrow. The limbs are stiffened, the face clouded with paleness, the eye closed in darkness, the ear deaf, the voice dumb, and the whole appearance ghastly and dreadful. In the mean time, the spirit deserts its ruined habitation, and wings its way into the unknown vast of being.

2. The body is conveyed to the grave.

Necessity compels the living to remove this decayed frame from their sight. Different nations have pursued different modes of accomplishing this purpose. By some nations the body has been consumed with fire. By others it has been embalmed. By some it has been lodged in tombs, properly so called. By some it has been consigned to vaults and caverns; and by most has been buried in the grave. All nations, in whatever manner they have disposed of the remains of their departed friends, have with one consent wished, like Abraham, to ‘remove their dead out of their sight.’

In this situation the body becomes the prey of corruption, and the feast of worms. How humiliating an allotment is this to the pride of man! When the conqueror, returned from the slaughter of millions, enters his capital in triumph; when the trumpet of fame proclaims his approach, and the shouts of millions announce his victories; surrounded by the spoils of subjugated nations, and followed by trains of vanquished kings and heroes; how must his haughty spirit be lowered to the dust by the remembrance, that within a few days himself would become the food of a worm, reigning over him with a more absolute control than be ever exercised over his slaves. Yet this will be the real end of all his achievements. To this humble level must descend the tenant of the throne, as well as of the cottage. Here wisdom and folly, learning and ignorance, refinement and vulgarity, will lie down together. Hither moves with an unconscious, but regular step, the beauty that illumines "the gay assembly’s gayest room;" that subdues the heart even of the conqueror himself; and says, ‘I sit as queen, and shall see no sorrow.’ All these may, and must, ultimately say to corruption, ‘Thou art our father, and to the worm, Thou art our mother, and our sister.’ But we are not yet at the end of the progress. The next stage in our humiliation is, to be changed into dust. This was our origin; this is our end. The very clods on which we tread were once, not improbably, parts, to a greater or less extent, of living beings like ourselves. Not a small part of the surface of this world has, in all probability, been animated and inhabited by human minds; and the remains of man are daily perhaps, as well as insensibly, turned up by the plough and the spade.

II. The events, which immediately after death concern the soul, are the following:

1. At death the soul quits the body, to return to it no more.

At death the animal functions cease, or rather the cessation of them is death itself. Then the flexibility, the power of action, and the consequent usefulness to which they gave birth, are terminated also. The soul, of course, finds the body no longer fitted to be an instrument of its wishes, or its duties. The limbs can no longer convey it from place to place, the tongue communicate its thoughts, nor the hands execute its pleasure. Deprived of all its powers, the body becomes a useless and uncomfortable residence for a being to whose nature activity is essential, and the purposes of whose creation would be frustrated by a longer confinement to so unsuitable a mansion. We cannot wonder therefore that the Author of our being should, in his providence, remove the soul from a situation so contradictory in all respects to the design of its existence.

The proof of the fact which I am considering, and of the existence of the soul in a state of separation from the body has, to a great extent, been necessarily given in a former Discourse, in which I attempted to show, that the soul is not material. To that Discourse I must, therefore, refer my audience for these proofs. It may, however, not be improper briefly to mention some of them on the present occasion.