I. IT RETAINS A CONSCIOUSNESS OF ITS INDIVIDUAL EXISTENCE AND OF ITS PERSONAL IDENTITY. The effects of death upon the body we can distinctly trace from the suspended animation to the final dissolution. But who can show any influence of death upon the soul beyond the simple cessation of any visible action of the mind through its supposed organ the brain p If there were uniformly a decline of mental manifestations corresponding with the decline of the body through disease, if we saw that the mind always failed in perception, in memory, in reflection, and in action, just in proportion as the body failed in strength and in the power of locomotion, then we might infer that death had an influence upon the mind corresponding with its influence upon the body; yet even then we should not be warranted in saying that the mind itself had ceased to be, or that anything had occurred beyond the suppression of mental activity through its ordinary channels. You enter an apartment where a thousand wheels all connected by cogs and bands are in swiftest motion, and the shuttle is flying incessantly through a score of looms. You do not, however, see the propelling force by which all this machinery is driven. Far down under the ground, in a vault of the strongest masonry, the great fire is fed that generates the steam which, conveyed through concealed pipes, imparts motion to the engine, and thence to the thousand wheels of the factory. Of a sudden the machinery stops; the wheels are motionless, the shuttle is arrested in the middle of the loom. Now, you are not warranted in inferring that the great fire in the vault below, which you have never seen, has been suddenly extinguished, or that the supply of water in the boiler has failed, or that the boiler itself has burst, or that from any cause the engine has ceased to move. Only some connecting pipe has burst, or some band or joint concealed from you is broken. The force exists there and needs only a connecting medium to manifest its presence. What more, then, are you authorized to infer when the machinery of life stands still than that the connection between the energizing will and the muscular framework has been severed? Would you be warranted in inferring that intelligence and will were annihilated, even if simultaneously with the decay of the body you always witnessed a corresponding cessation of mental activity? The machinery has stopped, but does that prove that the fire has been put out, that the motive power is destroyed? But we do not always witness a decline of mental activity corresponding with the decay of the body. How often does the mind continue the full exercise of its every faculty up to the very moment of death; how often, indeed, does its activity seem to increase as it approaches that crisis. How evident is it that the fire is burning, that the engine is moving, that the inner force is there even while the outer machinery drags heavily, and grates and pauses, from the snapping of one and another of its bands. You can show me nothing to prove that the mind is injuriously affected by death, you can bring no proof whatever that it is annihilated. And now, with no evidence from nature of the annihilation of the spirit at death, I turn to revelation to learn what then becomes of it. And here I learn first of all that it continues to exist, a conscious spirit, retaining its personal identity. There is no suspension of consciousness; or, if any, it is only as the momentary suspension of consciousness in sleep, from which the mind awakes with new perceptions and with augmented vigour. Abraham, Moses, Elias, Lazarus and Dives are the same persons after death that they were before it, and knew themselves to be the same. This is the first fact that we gain knowledge of in the future history of the soul. And how significant is such a fact as this. What an awful discovery to the man who has lived an atheist, who has flattered himself into the belief that death was an eternal sleep. The delusion then vanishes. When death comes and his connection with this outward world is severed, he wakes up to a consciousness of existence still; the same being and beyond the possibility of annihilation, and where death has no more power. What a discovery is this for such a mind to wake up to, and understand after death!

II. THE SOUL AFTER DEATH AWAKES TO A LIVELY AND A CONSTANT SENSE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD. What a fearful thought for the men who have tried to convince themselves, and others, that there was no God, or that God was but a blind, indifferent, unobservant force. Think of such a mind waking up into the very presence of the living God. That is the soul's second experience after death — it wakes up to know itself alive, and it wakes up to a personal God.

III. THE SOUL AWAKES TO THE MEMORY OF THE PAST. This is clearly intimated in the following context. The spirit will return to God for a judicial purpose. God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing. And in order to this, the soul itself will recall its secret and its long-forgotten sins. Indeed, there is great probability that at death the faculty of memory will be quickened into new activity and power; and that impressions buried under the dust and rubbish of years will be brought out as fresh as when first made upon the pliant but durable tablet of the heart. Now, the Scriptures teach us, as in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, that the memory is in most lively exercise after death.

IV. THE SOUL WILL AWAKE TO THE CERTAINTY AND THE NEAR PROSPECT OF THE JUDGMENT. The spirit returns to God that it may answer for the deeds it has clone here in the body. Retaining its identity, it retains its accountability; it retains its personal relations to the government of God, and to God Himself as a Ruler and a Judge.

V. THE SOUL AFTER DEATH WILL ENTER UPON THE EXPERIENCE OF AN ETERNAL RETRIBUTION. This is the uniform representation of the Scriptures. The soul enters at once upon a state of happiness or of misery, and it knows that that state is to be eternal. O the unutterable joy or the unspeakable anguish of the mind when it first realizes the fact that it will be for ever blessed or for ever miserable!

(J. P. Thompson.)

1. Death is the severance of the two parts of man's complex being; the dissolution, not of the being, but of the union, between body and soul.

2. The text points to the origin of the body. "Then shall the dust return" — not "the body." It is described by what it was and will be: "Dust thou art," etc. (Psalm 103:14; Genesis 18:27). The Church, in the same way, commits the body to the grave, as "dust to dust," in the Burial Office. This is a humbling thought, and it is true, whatever view may be taken of the creation of the body.

3. It "shall return to the earth." "Unto dust shalt thou return," has in it the accents of Divine disappointment. An act of man has intervened, whereby the hindrance to corruption has been removed, and the corruptible body therefore pursues its natural course. "God made not death" (Wisd. 1:13), but man "called it to" him by forfeiting the grace which kept it away. The result is, "in Adam all die."

4. It is bodily death to which the text refers; and the words are true now, as in the Old Covenant — though Christ redeemed both body and soul. "The body is dead because of sin" (Romans 8:10), though "the spirit is life because of righteousness."

II. THE DESTINY OF THE SPIRIT.

1. It pursues a different route, for its origin is different. "God who gave it." The words point to the spirit as being a special creation of God — the infusio animae. God is truly "the Father of Spirits" (Hebrews 12:9), and it can be said of souls that they are His, because He directly creates them (Ezekiel 18:8). They come from Him.

2. The spirit returns to its Source. The words, "Into Thine hands I commit" for, "commend," Prayer-book Version of "My spirit," are used at the departing of the soul, when leaving the body. Thus death is regarded as the withdrawal of that which had been given.

3. Here is the belief in a future life, and in a book, too, which materialists and pessimists have thought favoured their views. The soul in its individuality; the soul as a supra-sensuous substance — the spirit; the soul as the express gift of God; the soul as an immortal principle beyond the reach of that disintegration which death produces in the "houses of clay" (Job 4:19); the soul returning to Him "who only hath immortality" in an absolute sense, as Self-derived; — all this is in Ecclesiastes, before Christ had brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.

III. LESSONS.

1. The remembrance of the end is one which is impressed upon us in Holy Scripture as most important (Deuteronomy 32:29; Psalm 39:4).

2. This is most necessary in the time of temptation, in making some important choice, or when languid in devotion. It acts respectively as a curb, as an adviser, as a stimulant, on those occasions.

3. If death were annihilation, to view life from the standpoint of death would be morbid; but as death is the gate to higher life, such a view is not, one of unmingled sadness, but fills this present life with interest, as its issues are seen to be eternal.

4. To seek more and more to realize how precious is the immortal spirit, God-given; and to learn how to preserve it from sin, knowing its destination.

(H. W. Hutchings, M. A.)

I. FROM THE SOUL ITSELF.

1. The soul is a spiritual substance. This is evident from the fact that it possesses all the properties of spirit, and none of those that belong to matter — such as intelligence, reflection, and volition.

2. The soul is capable of endless improvement. The more knowledge the mind possesses, the better fitted it is for fresh acquisitions in knowledge. The mind possesses faculties that are but imperfectly exercised in this life; but as nothing is made in vain, there must, therefore, be a future state.

3. All men desire immortality, and are averse to annihilation. Can we suppose that a Being, infinite in wisdom and goodness, would plant such desires for immortality in His creatures if they were never to be gratified?

4. All human beings are disposed to be religious in some way. This is so natural to men, that some have chosen to define man a religious, rather than a rational, animal. All nations have their gods, to whom they pay adoration and worship; and there is nothing too mean and insignificant for man to worship, rather than to have no god. And all religions are founded in the belief of a future state.

5. The powers and faculties of the mind are strong and vigorous, when the body is weak and emaciated. "Though the outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." How often, when speech has failed, and the body has lost the power to raise a single limb, has the soul, by some token, evinced, not only that all its faculties remained unimpaired, but that it was leaving the world in the greatest peace.

II. A FUTURE STATE OF EXISTENCE MAY BE CONCLUDED FROM THE UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS IN THIS LIFE.

1. If there be a God, He is a God of justice; and if He be a God of justice, He will fully reward the virtuous, and punish the vicious — but this He does not do in the present world; and, therefore, there must be a future state.

2. The natural tendency of virtue is, indeed, to produce happiness, and that of vice is to produce misery. But though these positions hold true in general, still there are innumerable cases in which the virtuous suffer much, and the vicious little or nothing in this world. We are therefore led to conclude that the present state is only a small part of the great plan of God's moral government.

3. That the present life is a time of trial, or probation, is admitted on all hands, with very few exceptions. And a state of trial implies that there will be a time of review, or examination, when the probationers will be rewarded, or punished, according to their works. But this time cannot come till the state of trial is finished.

4. The doctrine that there is no future state destroys all proper distinction between virtue and vice. And, indeed, if this be the ease, they have no existence but in name; for neither is the one rewarded, nor the other punished. There would be no motives to virtue, nor any checks to vice. Do away a future state, and there is nothing for the vicious to fear, nor for the virtuous to desire.

III. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL AND A FUTURE STATE ARE MOST CLEARLY REVEALED IN THE SCRIPTURES OF TRUTH.

1. There are certain persons of whom it is said that they shall never die. But none are exempt from the death of the body. It is, there. fore, the soul that shall not die.

2. The immortality of the soul may be inferred from Scripture instances of committing the spirit to God.

3. We learn from the Scriptures that the soul, on the death of the body, goes immediately to happiness or misery.

4. The Scriptures speak particularly of the existence of the soul, after the death of the body. Christ affirms that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were living in His time, in quoting and commenting on the words of the Lord to Moses at the burning bush.

IV. INFERENCES: —

1. If the soul be immortal, it must be exceedingly valuable.

2. If the soul be immortal, the loss of it must be indescribable.

(O. Scott.)

(J. H. Newman, D. D.)

     4006   creation, origin
     4050   dust
     4195   spirits
     4804   breath
     6203   mortality
     9021   death, natural
     9110   after-life

Ecclesiastes 12:1-7

     5004   human race, and sin
     5561   suffering, nature of
     6200   imperfection, influence

Ecclesiastes 12:2-7

     5726   old age, attainment

Ecclesiastes 12:6-7

     4903   time

The Work of Our Sanctification.
How much more easily sanctity appears when regarded from this point of view. If the work of our sanctification presents, apparently, the most insurmountable difficulties, it is because we do not know how to form a just idea of it. In reality sanctity can be reduced to one single practice, fidelity to the duties appointed by God. Now this fidelity is equally within each one's power whether in its active practice, or passive exercise. The active practice of fidelity consists in accomplishing the duties …
Jean-Pierre de Caussade—Abandonment to Divine Providence

Circumstances and Consequences
And fears shall be in the way.' (Ecclesiastes xii. 5.) The man who wrote these words was specially emphasizing the importance of settling one's relationships to the great Creator before the coming of days when infirmities increase, and decay of natural powers sets in. The practical outcome of that thought is, that postponement only adds to one's difficulties when the battle really has to be fought. Amongst those difficulties the sacred writer places that natural foreboding, physical shrinking …
T. H. Howard—Standards of Life and Service

The Ancestral Home
John Van Nest Talmage was born at Somerville, New Jersey, August 18, 1819 He was the fourth son in a family of seven brothers and five sisters. The roots of the Talmage genealogical tree may be traced back to the year 1630, when Enos and Thomas Talmage, the progenitors of the Talmage family in North America, landed at Charlestown, Massachusetts, and afterwards settled at East Hampton, Long Island. Dr. Lyman Beecher represents the first settlers of East Hampton as "men resolute, enterprising, acquainted …
Rev. John Gerardus Fagg—Forty Years in South China

Letter cxxvi. To Marcellinus and Anapsychia.
Marcellinus, a Roman official of high rank, and Anapsychia his wife had written to Jerome from Africa to ask him his opinion on the vexed question of the origin of the soul. Jerome in his reply briefly enumerates the several views that have been held on the subject. For fuller information he refers his questioners to his treatise against Rufinus and also to their bishop Augustin who will, he says, explain the matter to them by word of mouth. Although it hardly appears in this letter Jerome is a decided …
St. Jerome—The Principal Works of St. Jerome

Obedience to God the Way to Faith in Christ.
"When Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, He said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God."--Mark xii. 34. The answer of the scribe, which our blessed Lord here commends, was occasioned by Christ's setting before him the two great commandments of the Law. When He had declared the love of God and of man to comprehend our whole duty, the scribe said, "Master, Thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but He: and to love Him with all the heart, and with …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

The Abrogation of the Saybrook Platform
That house cannot stand.--Mark iii, 25. The times change and we change with them.--Proverb. The omission of all persecuting acts from the revision of the laws in 1750 was evidence that the worst features of the great schism were passing, that public opinion as a whole had grown averse to any great severity toward the Separatists as dissenters. But the continuance in the revised statutes of the Saybrook Platform as the legalized constitution of the "Presbyterian, Congregational or Consociated Church," …
M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.—The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut

A Treatise of the Fear of God;
SHOWING WHAT IT IS, AND HOW DISTINGUISHED FROM THAT WHICH IS NOT SO. ALSO, WHENCE IT COMES; WHO HAS IT; WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS; AND WHAT THE PRIVILEGES OF THOSE THAT HAVE IT IN THEIR HEARTS. London: Printed for N. Ponder, at the Peacock in the Poultry, over against the Stocks market: 1679. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," and "a fountain of life"--the foundation on which all wisdom rests, as well as the source from whence it emanates. Upon a principle …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

1 to Pray Does not Imply that Without Prayer God Would not Give us Anything...
1. To pray does not imply that without prayer God would not give us anything or that He would be unaware of our needs, but it has this great advantage, that in the attitude of prayer the soul is best fitted to receive the Giver of blessing as well as those blessings He desires to bestow. Thus it was that the fullness of the Spirit was not poured out upon the Apostles on the first day, but after ten days of special preparation. If a blessing were conferred upon one without a special readiness for …
Sadhu Sundar Singh—At The Master's Feet

The Fifth Commandment
Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.' Exod 20: 12. Having done with the first table, I am next to speak of the duties of the second table. The commandments may be likened to Jacob's ladder: the first table respects God, and is the top of the ladder that reaches to heaven; the second respects superiors and inferiors, and is the foot of the ladder that rests on the earth. By the first table, we walk religiously towards God; by …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

Appendix v. Rabbinic Theology and Literature
1. The Traditional Law. - The brief account given in vol. i. p. 100, of the character and authority claimed for the traditional law may here be supplemented by a chronological arrangement of the Halakhoth in the order of their supposed introduction or promulgation. In the first class, or Halakhoth of Moses from Sinai,' tradition enumerates fifty-five, [6370] which may be thus designated: religio-agrarian, four; [6371] ritual, including questions about clean and unclean,' twenty-three; [6372] concerning …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

A Prayer when one Begins to be Sick.
O most righteous Judge, yet in Jesus Christ my gracious Father! I, wretched sinner, do here return unto thee, though driven with pain and sickness, like the prodigal child with want and hunger. I acknowledge that this sickness and pain comes not by blind chance or fortune, but by thy divine providence and special appointment. It is the stroke of thy heavy hand, which my sins have justly deserved; and the things that I feared are now fallen upon me (Job iii. 25.) Yet do I well perceive that in wrath …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

The Christian Man
Scripture references: Genesis 1:26-28; 2:7; 9:6; Job 33:4; Psalm 100:3; 8:4-9; Ecclesiastes 7:29; Acts 17:26-28; 1 Corinthians 11:7; Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10; 1 Corinthians 15:45; Hebrews 2:6,7; Ephesians 6:10-18; 1 Corinthians 2:9. WHAT IS MAN? What Shall We Think of Man?--Who is he? What is his place on the earth and in the universe? What is his destiny? He is of necessity an object of thought. He is the subject of natural laws, instincts and passions. How far is he free; how far bound? …
Henry T. Sell—Studies in the Life of the Christian

The Heavenly Footman; Or, a Description of the Man that Gets to Heaven:
TOGETHER WITH THE WAY HE RUNS IN, THE MARKS HE GOES BY; ALSO, SOME DIRECTIONS HOW TO RUN SO AS TO OBTAIN. 'And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain: escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.'--Genesis 19:17. London: Printed for John Marshall, at the Bible in Gracechurch Street, 1698. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. About forty years ago a gentleman, in whose company I had commenced my …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Of the Effects of those Prerogatives.
From these prerogatives there will arise to the elect in heaven, five notable effects:-- 1. They shall know God with a perfect knowledge (1 Cor. i. 10), so far as creatures can possibly comprehend the Creator. For there we shall see the Word, the Creator; and in the Word, all creatures that by the Word were created; so that we shall not need to learn (of the things which were made) the knowledge of him by whom all things were made. The most excellent creatures in this life, are but as a dark veil …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Ecclesiastes
It is not surprising that the book of Ecclesiastes had a struggle to maintain its place in the canon, and it was probably only its reputed Solomonic authorship and the last two verses of the book that permanently secured its position at the synod of Jamnia in 90 A.D. The Jewish scholars of the first century A.D. were struck by the manner in which it contradicted itself: e.g., "I praised the dead more than the living," iv. 2, "A living dog is better than a dead lion," ix. 4; but they were still more …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

Christ the King at his Table. Ss 1:2-5,12,13,17.
Christ the King at his table. SS 1:2-5,12,13,17. Let him embrace my soul, and prove Mine interest in his heav'nly love; The voice that tells me, "Thou art mine," Exceeds the blessings of the vine. On thee th' anointing Spirit came, And spreads the savor of thy name; That oil of gladness and of grace Draws virgin souls to meet thy face. Jesus, allure me by thy charms, My soul shall fly into thine arms! Our wand'ring feet thy favors bring To the fair chambers of the King. [Wonder and pleasure tune …
Isaac Watts—The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts