Mbits the reality and effect of this complex being.
WhOe his earthly paradise yidded il> rick pleasures to every sense and senrifaility of fan i nature, his higher life fbond its appropnrte mi pi eminent occupation and deliglit in the tenia m communion of the ' Father of his spirit." Tlase vie* as they magnify the life which God gave bl be felt to complicate the nature and effects cfu How, then, does it affiect us ? Doea it reach tht tm man, body and spirit ? If so, how are tbey ims^ and together affected by it? and In wfaadt crdez,ai» what process does it consummate its wozk ?
*' 1. Death extends to the entire man, and te fm part of hb nature. Against himj^fflf the thre was directed, *■ In the day thoa emt/ott tbtml h shalt die.' Beyond doubt Ihe outward mac eth, and surely the inner man, the subject <tf ihtf ■ of which the body b bat the instnunent, cusAm secaped the force of the dread sentence. Gvd's «« assures us that the soul that sinneth it shall St. 5c it speaks of man as already dead who yet lirv b^ body; dead, therefore, spiritually. On the other kL it speaks of men now alive through grace vbs ol never die, while yet the graves are ready i« ^m. Men who walk after the coarse of the world sz^i:" in pleasure are pronounce * dead In sin,* dead v^ they live. And while whoso loveth hi§ brolkf !■ ' passed from death unto life, he that hateth & ^o er abideth in death.' These Scriptnrea, wb& ^ distinguish between bodily and spiritual desth. r^ sent both as included in the sentence, and tfanaiaK and executed against the sinner.
*< 2. To what effect, then, does death exert kt prw upon the body and the spirit severally and ta^ It is not unimportant to observe that this is i^f> tinction of existence or annihilation either of t&r x or the other. For a time the body retaiof ^ kn. and its substance, however changed, is nereU much more, may it be presumed, shall the 5pei ^ vive. Not, indeed, that spirit more than bodj b '» mortal independently of God's will, but that, ^ he preserves our inferior part, he will mndtmoK^ serve the higher and more kindred prodnct of bk » ative power. The effects of death upon the bodr i- self are a matter of common observation; ^^kIJ turns its comeliness into oormptioti, ami fiaiiK > duces its form and structure into shapeless dost i^ effect of bodily death on the spirit of the nuo v^ nature is thus divided it may be more difftealt te <^ mate. This may depend in part on the valve ti^i earthly portion he has lost, and partly on the Uisi\ portion on which he has entered, but it cannot^ a- different either to the child of sorrow or to the fa^ of grace, more than to the heir of this worW, winni has stripped of his whole inheritance of good. ^^ we look on the deserted and impasdve corpse isi»T ' It is all over with him now,' the disembofied (^ must still find itself the subject of a maimed sed im- perfect nature. Ckmsciousness belongs to its sati^ and must endure while it has being. Iti {V^^ lies in the harmony and subjection of its po««i! ^ dispositions to the nature and wiU of God ; its deai'' contrariety and enmity to him. This in voire* tie ^ ruption of a holy and dutiful relation to the FiAe^ spirits, and, by inevitable consequence, a depnv^ of the fruits of his love and fSsvor, on wbieh We ts: blessedness depend. *Tonr sins have sepsntci^ tween you and God.*
" 8. It may tend further to clear this subject to b^ briefly the order and process through whkh Ae v» of death is consummated. Though incurred iastsito- neously on the act of transgression, its effects ^^ by successive stages, and at several more or 1«* *• tant intervals. As caused by sin, the spiritatl ^ as the proper subject and source of the evil, iW** its power. Its very touch intercepts all happy ^^ course with a holy God. This was fWt sod wes * the day that Adam sinned^ His fear and flights*^
DEATH, BROTHERS OP 115
DEBORAH
o^ tbe Lord God in the garden was the munis- le sy^nptom of a soul already dead in sin, which
no^ live with God, while his expulsion fh>m
presence marked no less clearly that Grod had 1 to live with him. Thns was executed to the
tlie word which God had spoken, ' In the day eatest thou shalt surely die/ But the work of
tlms begun does not stop here. The disruption » creature's relation to God, it may well be con- % must introduce disorder into aU the relations nterests of its being ; nor, unless with a view to
ulterior design of signal Judgment or of more
I mercy, might its ftdl development and consum- >o be long delayed. But in subserviency to this Loes man live on in the body for a season, though
God. *he is dead while he liveth.' Tet it is but little time. Whatev^ be the result of this day rbearance, the work of death goes on ; *the body ad because of sin' — the mortal crisis which awaits y indi-vidual man in his own time. As distinguish- om spiritual, it is called temporal death, as super- ig exclusion from the things of earth and time to oas of all happy interest in God. There remains >ne farther stage ere it reach its complete and final !, botb in the individual and the race. When the ppus of the divine administration in our world are bed, the bodies of all who sleep in dust shall be ganized. There shall be a resurrection of the just of tbe nnjust. Whfle the Just, by faith through », shAll be raised to life incorruptible and glorious, unjust, impenitent, and unbelieving shall awake Ebe resorrectipn of damnation. The whole man