A SERMON
&c.
Gen. ii. 7.
“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”
Thus, my brethren, in noble and grand words, noble in their strength and in their simplicity, we are told of the creation of man, as separate and distinct from that of all other creatures. Having formed his bodily frame out of the dust of the earth, the Almighty breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a living soul, in the image of the living God. How far, and with what divine beauty, the heavenly image was then reflected in its earthly type, the splendour and perfection of God’s handiwork, we know not. However noble the glory of man’s appearance, however godlike its outer form, in that day, since then he has fallen from his high estate, and sin and death, which marred the purity of his soul, have left traces of their deadly leaven in his framework of flesh and blood. And yet not utterly debased or ruined it. For, still, the face of many a little child bears stamped upon it the imperishable marks of God’s handiwork, and the beauty, and freshness, and innocence shine out, till we think of the faces of the Blessed before the Throne on high. While all that is fair in the face of woman, and all that is noble and true in that of man, tells only of the same divine source. In a word, the whole living man, the body in its strength, pride, and beauty; the mind, the keen reason, the swift intelligence, the glowing imagination; and the soul, the conscience, and the spirit answering within; lifting man out of himself to the Heaven above him, and enabling him on earth to hold commune as a spirit with the Father of all spirits—each and all witness to the same truth—the breath that is in him, his framework, his whole being are from the breath of God, and therefore he is a living soul, immortal, and for a life beyond this.
And nothing is commoner, even among worldly people, my brethren, than a sort of easy, vague acknowledgment that it is so; nothing easier than a kind of fluent talk about the soul, and the importance, perhaps the necessity, of saving the soul; if not just at present, certainly at the earliest possible opportunity; if not by a life of faith and purity to God, and of truth and goodwill to man—at all events by holding fast to some particular set of opinions, or of texts, some one favourite doctrine, or pet form of outward service to God. And even below this range of talkers, there are others who say, The soul immortal?—Oh, yes, of course, man is to be in Heaven hereafter—if all be well—and we trust by the mercy of God that at last we shall reach that land; but, in the meanwhile, they live on from day to day, in one round of easy smoothness, working only for the body, its care, its comfort, its life; as if there were no dwelling-place but earth; as if man’s soul were but a matter of concern for the future; as if Christ had never borne the bitter Cross for man’s sin, to open for him the gates of Paradise!
Their terrible and fatal mistake, you see, is the fashioning out a religion as a thing apart from their daily life, and thinking of their souls as apart from themselves. Whereas there is no true religion but such as speaks in a man’s life, and is its vital breath; and the soul is no other but the man himself. They madly look upon religion as a thing for Sundays, for fixed times only, and for set forms; times and forms to be used as a sort of charm against uncomfortable thoughts of death, or fear of God’s anger; or as a set-off for the follies, and sins, and selfishness of the week; something that shall set all right at the last, and make the account square when the balance is against them; or for still worse and weaker reasons: because it is right and decent to go to church, and do as so many others do whom they know and imitate, and whose regard they value. God help the man—ere it be too late—who trusts to such a scheme of religion as this; for it is full of deceit and peril! It may end, and it probably will end, in his forgetting his soul altogether. Not forgetting to wish that his soul may be saved at last, and that peace may be with him when death comes, and joy beyond it; not this, because every man, however foolish or however wicked, wishes this much, or will wish it some day; but absolutely forgetting and ignoring the fact that the soul is the man himself; that its life, and passions, and desires, and hunger, and thirst, are to be looked to, cared for, and fed day by day; that if he hopes for Heaven at all, he must begin to get ready for it now, while life lasts; and that in neglecting this, and letting religion slip out of his daily life, he is perilling his very existence, he is dying by inches. Heart, conscience, soul, spirit, are becoming seared, cold, dark, and dead, while he, to all outward appearance in full strength, has the form of religion but not its life; the words in his mouth, but no echo within; the sound of the Gospel in his ears, but neither the spirit, nor life, nor freedom of the truth, which spring from the abiding sense of God’s unseen abiding presence.
How shall any such being understand that religion, that prayer, praise, and sacrifice are no mere matter between man and man, but only between him and God? What does it affect him to be told, or to agree, that man is a spirit, and that if he seeks to worship the living God it must be in spirit and truth? He scarcely knows what the desires, and passions, and wants of the soul are. To him the words, life and death of the soul, are little more than vague sounds.
No wonder, then, that the two great springs of his spiritual life are to him but of light account. His Baptism, to him, is merely a time when he got his Christian name; his confirmation when he was old enough not to need the help of sponsors any longer. But, as to his having then entered into a covenant with God, by His divine grace, to live the life of a spirit, of one made a living soul; and these vows being on him all through life, it never even remotely occurs to him!
No wonder even that the solemn feast in memory of his Saviour’s death is a matter from which he may turn away just as the whim, or the idle excuse of the moment prompts, or neglect altogether through his whole life, without a thought of peril. I say altogether, yet a day falls on him at last, when, in the midst of decaying strength, a clouded mind, and dying faculties, as the windows of the soul begin to grow dark, he thinks it only right and decent that he should ask for the Holy Communion, as all proper people (he says) do under such circumstances—and he takes it; not because it has strengthened and refreshed his soul all through life, but because, without it, the fear of death is too strong for him. He dares not go out of the world, in fact, and enter on his Maker’s presence without this one final token, as he thinks, of not having utterly forgotten Him.
God forbid, brethren, that I should count little of even this terribly late and weary confession of the God that made him; this tardy, unwilling, owning that man is a living soul. But mark well, brethren, never forget, the wide difference between this and the owning of God our Creator, and Christ our Saviour, and the Holy Ghost our Sanctifier, here, now, in our daily work, while life remains, while strength is ours, while the battle is going on all round, and within us; while the devil tempts, and the flesh has power, and the world is bright and gay.
See the difference between offering to God while we have anything to offer, and when we have nothing; when all else has failed us; when power, and pride, and human pleasures, and human cares have all come to an end, and there is no further possibility of indulging either the one or the other; but only the intolerable weight of the past, only the deep conviction remaining that our trial is over, our time of probation finished, our Judge very near at hand; as the earth crumbles under our feet, and Heaven is opening wide on our amazed distracted eyes. Ah! or it may be Hell yawning beneath our troubled, weary, bewildered feet.