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THE

SCOTTISH CHRISTIAN HERALD,

CONDUCTED UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF MINISTERS AND MEMBERS OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH.

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MAN'S RELATION TO THE WORLDS OF MATTER AND SPIRIT.

BY THE REV. DAVID DICKSON, D.D.,
One of the Ministers of St Cuthbert's Parish, Edinburgh.

FROM what is stated in Scripture on the subject, we have every reason to believe that, of all the creatures of God, man alone is peculiarly connected both with this world and with the next; having his best interests united equally with the one as with the other. The thousand animated but irrational beings that roam or sport around us, have no existence beyond the period when their sentient life goes out; and all their enjoyments and interests perish for ever in the dust, to which their spirits no less than their bodies at that period descend. The angels-whether such of them as have retained their allegiance to their Creator, or those of them who "have not kept their first estate "—never had a habitation in the world in which we dwell; and, though created in time, from the moment of their creation they entered on a ceaseless eternity, unmarked, so far as we know, by any stated revolutions of years or ages. Our constitution, however, partakes of the quality of both these classes of beings. Like the inferior animals, we have sentient bodies; far surpassing theirs, indeed, in capacity and power, but still composed of the same material elements; subject to similar laws of disorganization or reproduction; and ready, like them, at the fiat of Him who breathed into our nostrils the breath of life, to return to the dust from which they originally sprung. Yet, like the angels, we possess an intellectual or spiritual nature also, endowed with the noblest faculties, capable of the sublimest contemplations, susceptible of the most exquisite pleasures or pains, formed to survive the dissolution not only of the mortal tabernacles in which they now reside, but of the whole material universe; and destined to exist in more than all their present capacities, and susceptibilities, and powers, throughout the circling periods of a changeless eternity.

No. 105, JANUary 2, 1841.-1§d.].

It is this compound constitution of body and mind, accordingly, that forms the most distinguishing peculiarity both of our character and our condition. From it we receive our distinctive place in the scale of creation, as connecting dead and inactive matter with living and active spirit; presenting a continuous and unbroken chain of existences from the inert and motionless clod of the valley, up to the highest seraph who approaches nearest to the uncreated and infinite Parent and Ruler of them all: while, in consequence of the same constitution, we are personally and intimately related to both worlds, and have our most essential interests inseparably linked at once to the passing events of time, and the permament arrangements of an eternal world.

But let us take a somewhat more detailed view of these facts, and think of the religious and moral influence which they ought to exert on our mind and conduct.

How admirable is the structure of our bodily frame, in all the variety of its parts and movements! The eye-how does it beam with intelligence, and bring into our mind increasing stores of delightful and varied information, alike interesting to our feelings and conducive to our happiness! The ear-how does it convey to us not only the sounds of alarm or of safety, the voice of affection, or the whispers of love, but the means of instruction for eternity as well as for time! Our senses of touch, and taste, and smell-how much do they also minister to our wants and our comforts; enabling us to enjoy the pressing hand of amity and friendship, to ward off danger, and to lay hold of support; imparting a double relish to the provision, whether richer or more homely, that nourishes or cheers us; giving us to inhale with delight the fragrant perfumes of the spring and summer, or the healthful air of the rising day, [SECOND SERIES, VOL. III.

or warning us to avoid the atmosphere of the city or chamber, loaded with the poisonous vapours of disease and death! How wondrously delicate, besides, yet how wisely protected, must these organs and inlets of knowledge and enjoyment be, when the very slightest alteration in a single one of the ten thousand fibres and vessels of which they are composed, would in a moment derange them; either materially impeding, or weakening, or completely unhinging and destroying their functions. We are, indeed, as graciously preserved as we are "fearfully and wonderfully made."

Surely, then, they must be obstinately blind who can look on so goodly and admirable a fabric, and yet fail to recognise in it the workmanship of that all-wise and omnipotent Being who formed the heavens and created the earth, and who, as his own Word assures us, when he first raised the human frame out of the dust of the earth, called it not man, till he had breathed into it that living soul from heaven, which alone gives it the power of sensation, or the means of acting and being acted upon, as the instrument of an intelligent and immortal spirit. Nor, of all the wonders connected with this noble, though frail, vehicle of our intelligence and happiness, is that the least remarkable which is discovered in the undisputed control which our mind or will possesses over all its organs, when these are in a sound or healthy state. To every part of it, except what is wisely made independent of our will, we have only to say, "Do this," and it is done.

What an interesting and commanding object does this "human form divine farther present, compared with the form of every other creature in this lower world! Combining every thing that is graceful and dignified, impressive and useful in almost every one of them, with a mind to which the instincts and sagacities of the whole of them scarcely approach nearer than the functions of the vegetable do to those of the animal tribes-a mind directing and governing it-investing it with not only a beauty but a power, to which hardly one of these have the least or most distant pretension how does it raise its head towards the skies, while its foot treads on the earth, looking, and moving, and speaking, and acting, as the created lord and master of them all. This in itself, and viewed with reference to every thing beneath and around us, is indeed dignity and honour, and points us out as the first-born of God upon earth.

Yet, should we be proud of this distinction, or indulge in vanity when we think of it? Certainly not. We may, and we should, admire it as the workmanship of God; and in its whole combination of form, and structure, and capacities, we shall find, if we study these aright, new and continued causes both of venerating his wisdom, and praising his beneficence; but to be vain or proud of them, is to forget that we did not make or create ourselves; and it is equally to forget that our body, beauteous as it really is, no less than as it may appear to others, is still but animated matter,

and that ere long it will sink into the bosom of the grave, and mix with its kindred elements.

Yes! it may and it should moderate the glorying of the weak-minded children of folly, who are vain of their outward form or beauty, to know and reflect that, separate from that soul or spirit which lives within them, and will never die, they have no pre-eminence above the beasts of the field, or the fowls of heaven. The substance of our bones and our flesh is the same with theirs. In a piece of marble, or even of chalk, there is, with but a very slight variation, the essence of the one; and the other is common to us with the lowest of the animals that move at our feet. We may learn a lesson of humiliation, therefore, in this respect, whenever we look at a bust of marble or of stucco, or even at the most disgusting of the beasts around us; for in regard to the elementary substances of which our bodies are composed, we partake of the same essential qualities, and are completely on a level with them both. Who, then, should boast of that which, when viewed in this light, is really so humiliating? And who should not anew adore the wisdom and power of that divine Artificer, who, out of the same original elements which enter into the structure of the most lifeless substance, or the meanest animal, has raised a form so noble and majestic as the body of man?

But take another step, and what becomes of this body? It is still, indeed, connected with the world of matter; but like it, is also passing away -stripped of all its beauty, stretched in utter helplessness in the arms of death, a loathsome carcass in the grave; inert and motionless as the clay by which it is surrounded, and with which it will soon be mixed; the prey of corruption, the food of worms, in a few years to be dissolved, and, so far as human eye could of itself perceive, to be as destitute of existence as if it had never been; undistinguished and undistinguishable from the dust or the soil in which it is decomposed, and apparently lost for ever. With the smiling infant, and the blooming youth-with the strength of manhood, and the charms that attract the gazer's eye in the opening or the maturity of life

with the brawny vigour of the sturdy peasant, and the delicate gracefulness of the most interesting fair-with the full and pampered body, and the fragile emaciated frame, whether in infancy, or youth, or manhood, or age-the result is the same, whenever the sentence of mortality goes forth against it, “Dust thou art, and to the dust thou shalt return."

And yet our body, though laid in the dust, is connected with the world to come; or rather, death may be regarded as dissolving our immediate connection with matter and time, for the very purpose of bringing us into a nearer connection with spirit and eternity.

It is true, that the very same bodies, as to the precise form and condition in which they were when laid in the tomb, will reappear no more; and perhaps the same elements which enter into

their constitution now may never enter into them again; nevertheless, that the dead will be raised, when "the heavens and the earth are dissolved, in the great and terrible day of the Lord," is a fact which none will dispute who give credit to the Word of infallible Truth. There it is affirmed in language the most explicit and definite; and there also its certainty is attested by facts, the admission of which adds the demonstration of reality, as it were, to the truth which that language declares. Yes! "As Jesus died and rose again, so those also who fall asleep in Jesus, God will bring with him." Nay, "all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation."

and imperishable, though we must soon go down like our fathers to the silence of the grave.

Wondrous and admirable, however, as is the constitution of our body, that of our mind surpasses it far. Without this spiritual principle, as has been already hinted, our bodies would be merely lifeless statues; or rather, they would not exist at all. We might have existed, besides, as intelligent and moral beings, although we had had no such bodies as our present ones; but without them we could not have been peculiarly connected with a present world. It is this spiritual portion of our nature, accordingly, that most immediately and essentially connects us with the world of spirits. It is this that especially assimilates our nature to that not of angels only, but of God himself.

And, with what astonishing capacities and Personal identity is not dependent on the iden- powers is it endowed! It is not our material tical sameness of the material particles of which organs of sight, and hearing, and other senses, but our bodies are composed. There is no physical our mind, that sees, and hears, and feels, and perfact, indeed, more indisputable than this, that ceives by means of them. How acute and distinct scarcely a single particle of matter is to be found are its sensations !-how accurate and minute its in them now, that entered into their composition perceptions!-how important, and interesting, and a few years ago; and yet, we have the most per- invaluable, its faculties of memory, and imaginafect conviction and consciousness that we are the tion, and judgment or reasoning!-while conidentical persons who then thought, and moved, science sits at the helm, and, like the deputy of and acted in those very bodies, of which hardly an Heaven within us, reminds us of the relation in element remains exactly as it then was. So will which we stand to the God who made, and preit be with our resurrection bodies. They will be serves, and hereafter will judge us. With what adapted to the spiritual, as those which we at pre-inconceivable rapidity, too, can we dart, in thought, sent possess are to the material world. They from one region of the universe to another; look will be fitted, if we "die in the Lord," for the back to the period when creation was unknown, noblest and purest services, and the most exqui- and forward to the era when redemption shall be site and transporting enjoyments, never to be sub-completed; rise from the earth on which we tread, ject to pain, or disease, or weariness any more; and to experience no change for ever, but that of increasing activity, and vigour, and pleasure, while eternity endures. "It is sown in weakness," says the apostle, "but it is raised in power. It is sown a natural," or material and earthly "body; but it is raised a spiritual," or heavenly "body."

But, ah! if men have lived to themselves and the world, and not unto God and Christ, and if death shall find them in this wretched and hopeless condition, their bodies will not, on that account, be the last tenements which their immortal spirits shall occupy. Their bodies also will be raised or reproduced at the resurrection, but only to their shame and dishonour-to have a new capacity of sustaining the most unutterable pain infused into them to be made vessels of wrath, fit for enduring everlasting punishment-to have no remission from suffering, and no possibility of being annihilated, but to be tormented without end, "in the lake of fire, with the devil and his angels."

What an important, what a fearful, what an impressive, connection, then, have even our bodies as the instruments of present feeling and action, with the world to come, as well as with that which now is with eternity no less than with time! "The world passeth away," and every thing peculiar to it will one day perish; and we, too, pass away-but, unlike it, our existence is permanent

to the heaven of heavens, which no mortal sight can penetrate; place ourselves immediately as in the very presence of Him who filleth all in all, and, while yet confined to our tabernacles of clay, hold spiritual and purifying fellowship with him, in all the glories and interests of his transcendent, though at present only mentally contemplated and realized character, as not only the Father of our spirits, but the God of our salvation! How susceptible, also, of culture-how continually acquiring new accessions of ideas-how capable of ever-increasing expansion and enjoyment-are these heavenborn and heaven-aspiring faculties !

And should not all this teach, as it certainly tells us, that we were formed for far more exalted purposes than merely to hold converse with the material universe, to rest our happiness on the things of sense and time, to toil through life in the acquisition of intellectual knowledge only, in providing for the support of our animal existence, or in seeking our highest satisfactions in the society of men around us, in the delights of friendship, or even the endearments of love; and then to lose for ever, in the forgetfulness and inactivity of the grave, into which our bodies shall descend, every remembrance of the past, and consciousness of the present, and anticipation of the future?

The very mind which we thus possess will not allow us to believe that we have nothing else to

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