Transcribed from the 1871 Rivingtons’ edition by David Price.
PREACHED AT ST. MARK’S, SURBITON, KINGSTON-ON-THAMES
HIGH STREET | TRINITY STREET Oxford Cambridge 1871.
“_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!