II. WHAT IS DEATH? "Birds, beasts, each tree, All that hath growth or breath HENRY VAUGHAN: "The Check." WHAT IS DEATH? I. THE EXECUTION OF A SENTENCE. Gen. iii. 19. "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." II. Death is al It is in the 'We speak of Death as coming in the course of nature. But in the just and proper sense of the words, this is not true. Death does not come in the course of nature. Nature properly ought to mean the state of things as constituted by God. Man's original state is his natural state. It was a state of sinless purity and sinless joy. And in that state of things Death had no place. together out of the true course of nature. course, it is granted, of fallen nature-of nature as sinful and guilty. But of any moral nature, that state is the most unnatural possible. In one sense only can it be correctly said that the death of man is in the course of nature; namely, that it is in accordance with the moral requirements of the divine nature, and consequently with the eternal and immutable nature and fitness of things, that penalty should follow trespass; that sin should infer suffering. In THAT sense Death is in the course of nature-is natural."-Wardlaw. THE DISSOLUTION OF A UNION. Ecc. xii. 7. "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return to God who gave it.'' Strictly speaking, the separation of soul and body is the consequence of Death and not the cause of it. The body actually moulders down into indistinguishable earth, and only through the Holy Spirit can we track the spirit of man, on its invisible upward way. III. AN END. IV. We live in a variety of relations; of occupations; of pleasures; of sufferings; of possessions; of privileges; of opportunities. Of all these, and of everything else that pertains to earth and to time, Death is the final close. Every marriage must, soon or late, leave a widower or a widow; every birth a mourning parent or an orphan child; every growing family bereaved brothers or bereaved sisters; every friendship a solitary friend. "One event happeneth alike to all." A BEGINNING. Heb. ix. 27. "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." "After this "—an eternal sleep? annihilation? another period of probation? No! After Death God has appointed the Judgment. (Acts xvii. 31.) V. THE SEED-TIME OF A FUTURE HARVEST. I Cor. xv. 42-45. 'It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." What an interest then attaches to the last moment of every man's earthly life!-to the parting breath on which the soul passes away from its mortal tenement! As Death at that solemn moment finds him-believing or not believing on the only Saviour, reconciled to God or still alienated from him-pardoned or unpardoned-renewed or unrenewed; so must judgment, so must eternity find him-accepted and saved, or cast away and lost! In either case what an End!—because what a Beginning! VI. THE LAST ENEMY. (Cf. 1 Cor. xv. 26; Rev. xxi. 4, etc.) The Christian does not look upon Death and the grave with so much of dread and repulsion as did Job: he can look upon them not only without fear, but with feelings of triumph. But this is not because Death and the grave are changed, but because the future is changed-because life and immortality are brought to light in the Gospel. "The way by which we pass out of the world is still narrow and dark and cold, though our sharpened vision may see sweet fields beyond, and our quickened ear may catch celestial strains. We should look at Death as it is, as we shall find it, that we may know how to rise above it."— J. P. Thompson. VII. SIN, THE PROCURING CAUSE. Rom. v. 12. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."' "Draw near to this express image of God, ye ignorant and son was dead and is alive again. "-Robert Robin 1. There must be some mode of exchanging worlds. |