SERMON IV.

THE MYSTERY OF MAN'S BEING.

PSALM CXXXIX. 14.

"I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvellous are Thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well."

In the beginning of this Psalm king David gives utterance to his wonder and awe at the mystery of God's invisible, universal presence. And from this he turns upon the mystery of his own individual nature. It is with hardly less of awe and wonder that he muses upon himself. He feels a consciousness that his own very being is an ineffable work of God-his own body of dust, wrought after some high type of wisdom and perfection— knit together in a wonderful order-quickened by an ineffable breath of God-filled with the powers of life, with the light of reason, and the rule of conscience-able, by memory and by foresight, to make present both things past and things to come -to look through visible things, and make unseen things visible; and that all this should be himself -that all should be so blended into one, as to

revolve about his own will, and to be instinct with his own individual consciousness, this it was that made him say, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made; and that my soul knoweth right well."

It was from musing after this sort upon God, that he turned to muse upon himself. It was, indeed, by pondering upon the mystery of God's nature, that he learned to stand in awe of the mysteriousness of his own; by dwelling on the awful thought of the unseen Being who fills all things, and quickens all things, he came to understand that he too was a being of a high descent, a mystery of God's almighty power, and that in the wonderful frame of his own bodily form there dwelt a conscious soul, whose eye was turned inwardly to gaze upon itself. Now, as this consciousness of what we are follows in a most certain order upon a true knowledge, so far as man can have it, of what God is, so it is also a condition absolutely necessary to all true religion. There can be no real fear, or reverence, or seriousness of heart, until a man has come to understand, at least in some measure, what he is, that is, to realise his own awful structure and destiny.

We will consider, then, some of the thoughts which press upon a mind conscious of its own wonderful nature. It perceives in part an evident like

ness, and in part an equally marked unlikeness, to its Maker.

And, first; we know, by instinct and by revelation, that God has made us in one respect like to Himself, that is, immortal. This bodily frame we look upon, although it is a part of ourselves, is but the least part; although it has its share in Christ's redemption, it is but the shrine of the redeemed spirit: we feel that a man's self is his living soul-the invisible, impalpable spirit, which comprehends all his being with an universal consciousness, and is itself comprehended only of God. The body is its subject, its organ, its instrument, its manifestation, its symbol; it is not itself. All things that affect the body are external to it, separate from it. The very life of the body is but a lower energy of the true life of mán, and is also separable and distinct. It may be quenched, and yet the soul shall live, and wield higher powers and intenser energies, as unclogged and disenthralled from the burden and the bondage of its lower life. It has a life in itself, which, embodied or disembodied, shall live on-outliving not the body alone, but the very world itself. All things visible shall decay; the heaven shall pass away like a scroll, the earth shall melt away under our feet; even now all things are hurrying past us, are dropping piece

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meal, are dying daily; but we shall live for ever. We shall rise on the heaving wreck of material things. All men, both good and evil, shall live

on;

all that ever have lived, live still; all that ever died since Adam,-Abel the righteous, and Enoch that walked with God, and John that lay on his Master's bosom, Balaam that tempted the Lord, Judas that sold his Redeemer, Herod that mocked the Lord of glory, the very men that nailed Him to the cross;-all are living in some unseen abode. In this life they were a mystery of mortality and immortality knit in one. They were in their season of trial; and their day ran out, their award was fixed, the mortal fell off like a loosened shroud, and the immortal spirit passed into the world unseen.

And, in the next place, we learn that our nature stands in a marked contrast to the divine; that the immortal nature which is within us is of a mutable kind, susceptible of the most searching changes. God, who is immortal, is also changeless. He is "I am that I am," "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." In Him "is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." But we, who, by His almighty power, are made immortal like Himself, unlike Him, are daily changing. We are susceptible of forms and characters stamped upon us from without; of habits and tempers of

soul fixed by energies within. We grow, we decay, we fluctuate, we become what we were not, what we were we lose again; and yet we must be immortal. The most fearful and wonderful of mysteries is man. To be mortal, and to be mutable, to be under the power of change and death, would seem, like the meeting of kindred imperfections, to be consistent; that we, who change daily, should change at last, once for all, from life to death, from being to annihilation, would seem like the carrying out of a natural law; and the last change to be like all other changes, save only in that it is the greatest and the last. But to be ever changing, and yet to be immortal; that after this changeful life ended, there should be life everlasting, or the worm that dieth not,- bespeaks some deep counsel of God, some high destiny of man; something that is ever fulfilling, ever working out in us, whether

we will or no.

And so, indeed, it is. We are here, upon our trial, for this end. We are sent into the world, that, by our own will and choice, we should determine our eternal portion. This is the moral design and purpose of Him that made us; and therefore He made us as we are-mutable, that we may take our mould and character; and immortal, that we may retain it for ever.

1. Let us consider, then, first, that our im