Glass C- w ^ ^ 
 
 Book. 
 
 ti^HvJS 
 
FUNERAL SERMON 
 
 .T 
 
 ON THE LATK 
 
 CAPT. LUCIUS H. BOSTWICK. 
 
 BY REV. J. ISHAM BLISS. 
 
 JUNE lO, 1863. 
 
SERMON, 
 
 PREACHEO AT TflK FUNERAL 
 
 CAPT. LUCIUS II. BOSTWICK, 
 
 CALVARY CHURCH, JElilCHO, VT., 
 
 rX u :s i^ X <>, I w «j :t . 
 
 BY REV. J . I S H A M ?> L 1 S S 
 
 MONTPELIER : 
 
 printp:d by e. p. walton. 
 
 18G3. 
 
^H3 
 
 7 
 
SERMON 
 
 ST. JOHN, XI : 25. ~I AM THE RESURRECTION' ASD IHB LIFE; HE THAT BELIEVETU IN Me, 
 THOUGH HE WERE DEAB, TET SHAIL HE LIVE. 
 
 I. Our Lord, we observe, concentrates Martha's attention 
 on Himself as the original spring of life. This sister of 
 Lazarus evidently considered that she was attributing very- 
 extraordinary dignity and influence to the mysterious man 
 who had gone familiarly in and out of the household at 
 Bethany, when she told him " If Thou hadst been here my 
 brother had not died. But I know that even now, whatso- 
 ever Thou wilt ask of God, God will give it Thee." She 
 obviously thought she was conceding very much when she 
 recognized Him as thus puissant in procuring, but as an 
 agent, life from God. Aad very much would it have been 
 to concede, had Christ been other than He was — divine. 
 Mighty and honored indeed must be the creature who should 
 have such power with God, that God, out of regard to him, 
 would at his pleasure impart to or withhold from any being 
 the glorious gift of life. 
 
 But Martha's admission does not satisfy our Lord. He 
 will be recognized as something more than an instrument. 
 It is not enough for Him to be regarded simply as a means, 
 however exalted and efficient. He is not merely the me- 
 dium, the channel of life, but the source of life, nay, the life 
 itself. " I am the resurrection an^ the life." How false 
 
and inadequate, in the light of j-uch a declaration as this, ap- 
 pear ihuhc views whidi would make Chiist sim|»]y a human 
 being, endowed it may Ite with exti'aordinai-y wisdom and 
 \iilue liy nature or the Hj»irit, in order that Fie might be 
 useful to liis rellow's by His philosojihy, His instructions or His 
 example. In the mouth of which greatest of the piojjhcts, 
 fiowtvcr lull and aullioi itativo his divine connnission, would 
 uv.t I he as.M>riion of the text be a gross offence to us V Had 
 one of the pro))hets, as a divinely inspired teacher, revealed 
 liftj-giving doctrines, and only declared, as our Lord did at 
 another tim.c, that his words were life, i. e. had that derived 
 life which had been communicated to them by the great 
 primal fount of life, we might have freely granted his claim, 
 but had he gone farther and dared to call himself the life, in 
 the absolute sense of the word as employed by Christ, who, 
 that regards idolatiy as an abomination, would not have 
 repudiated him with abhorrence ? For must w^c not aver 
 with David," With Thee is the foundation of life." Do not 
 we all know that there can be but one independent, original 
 well of life, and that, He who is the sole, eternal generator 
 and preserver of all things ? Yet Christ unhesitatingly pro- 
 nounces Himself such an original, self-subsisting spring of 
 of life. " As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He 
 given to the Fon to have life in Himself." Or in the, if pos- 
 sible, still more unconditional terms of the text, " I am the 
 resurrection and the life." 
 
 If Christ is of any value to us, then, He is our all in all. 
 He is even more than our prophet, priest and king, more 
 than our instructor in righteousness, our sacrifice for sin, the 
 prescriber and controller of our conduct ; He is our very 
 life, — our God, and that as the " living God," — the Alpha 
 and Omega of all physical or spiritual vitality. 
 
II. In the second clause of the text, our Lord reveals to 
 Martha the comprehensiveness of His meaning, in calling 
 Himself the resurrection and the life. When He says " he 
 that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he 
 live," He manifestly intended to signify that He was the 
 author and bestower of a life far more important than the 
 mere natural, temporal life, — a life which a mere natural 
 and physical death should be powerless to affect. So insig- 
 nificant docs He know the simply physical dissolution to lie, 
 compared with that nobler life which He holds in Ilis gift, 
 that, in the verse which follows the text, though aware that 
 the Itelieving Lazarus had been lying in his tomb hard by for 
 four days, He leaves the natural death, as if unworthy even 
 of mention, entirely out of the account, and declares unqual- 
 ifiedly, " Whosoever liveth aud believeth in Me shall never 
 die." The highest favor which Martha hoped or wished the 
 Master to obtain was a few years prolongation of her broth- 
 er's natural earthly being. Christ shows her that He has 
 power to confer a much greater blessing, in comparison with 
 which, for its durability and richness, the one she asks is not 
 even to be named. As has been said, " Unless the Lord had 
 lifted Martha into a higher region of life, it had profited her 
 little that He had granted her heart's desire. What would 
 it have helped her to receive back her brother, if again she 
 were presently to lose him, if once more they were to be 
 parted asunder by his death or her own ? This lower boon 
 would only prove a boon at all if he and she were both made 
 partakers of a higher life in Christ ; then, indeed, death would 
 have no more power over them, then they would truly possess 
 one another, and forever ; and to this the wondrously deep 
 and loving words of Christ would lead her. ***** 
 •' J. am the resurjection and the life ;' the true life, the tnie 
 
6 
 
 resurrection ; the cverlastiDg triumphs over death, they are 
 in Me. * * * In Me is victory over the grave, in Me is 
 life eternal ; by faith in Me that becomes yours, which makes 
 death not to be death, but only the transition to a higher 
 life."* Christ meant Martha to understand that He was 
 more than the dispenser of our bare natural being and that 
 He had more than the power at pleasure to prostrate or 
 raise up these our fleslily tabernacles, though both these high 
 prerogatives were His. He meant her to understand that 
 He was the resurrection and the life in the broadest spiritual 
 sense, and that to whom he was such life, whatever natural 
 changes they might pass through, whatever experience of 
 dissolution they might undergo, their real vitality should 
 ever in the present world and the future remain undiminished 
 and undisturbed ; while those, to whom He was not such a 
 life, whatever their semblance of animation, however pro- 
 longed the integrity of their bodies, however active the 
 merely natural energies of their being, could at no time have 
 any veritable life, and their existence, at the most, could ever 
 be but a " living death." 
 
 Undoubtedly from Christ proceed the issues of life and 
 death in all their lower relations. As one with the Father, 
 and tlie one by whom all things consist, it is but as He sends 
 forth His spirit that all animate beings arc created, and as 
 He " withdraws their breath, that they die and return to 
 their dust." All these indications of vital power, which we 
 observe in our own curiously and wonderfully wrought 
 frames, are emanations from Plim who is " the life," throb- 
 bing heart, rushing current, quivering nerve and vibrating 
 muscle. From Him came to all our restless intellectual 
 and moral faculties their original impulse, and by Him is 
 
 *Bev. F. W. Robertson. 
 
their present vigor sustained. With Christ is the exclusive 
 direction as to the how, when and where all these physical 
 faculties shall come to a stop. Exactly in accordance with 
 what seems good to His own will, shall He prescribe for cacli 
 of us that temporary destruction, which is to come upon 
 these houses of clay, and bid the fairest and bravest forms 
 lie down to ho " crushed before the moth." Undoubtedly 
 also it is Christ alone who has the power to rear again these 
 crumbled temples. It will be His life-infusing voice only 
 that in the latter days can penetrate the dull earth of the 
 innumerable millions of our great brotherhood, who now but 
 as ashes lie mingled with the clods of the valley, sprinkled 
 on lone mountain tops, mouldering under cathedral arches, 
 strewn on war fields, garnered in classic urns, sepulchred in 
 hill sides, citadeled within pyramids, wrapped in polar snows, 
 tossed in wandering graves of the sea, and cause the sense- 
 less matter again to take human shape and motion, " bone 
 come to bone, sinew, flesh and skin covering them," all as 
 of old, so far as the needs of the occupant for the new state 
 of existence appointed him require. Christ is tlic resurrec- 
 tion and the life so far as all this, and this is not a little ; 
 but is He so no farther? Were Christ's vitalizing capabil- 
 ities exhausted by imparting to us originally our merely 
 physical and intellectual activities, or by hereafter re-ani- 
 mating our disorganized bodies, and rejoining them to our 
 souls in an eternal union, divine as would be such power, 
 could He satisfy our want ? could He be our life to the full ? 
 could He be our life in the most momentous sense ? Had 
 Christ, as the Life, ability only to bestow upon us this earthly 
 natural life and then power to do no more, to how many 
 would the grant be Init a doubtful benefit. How many 
 writhing in physical and mental anguish, with no hope 
 
beyond, might naturally groan out with Job, " Perish the 
 day wherein I was born." " Wherefore is light given to 
 him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul." 
 
 Were Christ's ability as the Resurrection limited to the 
 strict literal raising of our bodies, what advantage could He 
 be to us, could He not also furnish us a power to save our- 
 selves from rising but to a resurrection of condemnation ? 
 For some " shall awake to shame and everlasting contempt," 
 as well as some " to everlasting life." No, " it is not all of 
 life to live," in the ordinary earthly sense, nor "all of death 
 to die," in the ordinary earthly sense. Life and death liave 
 far profounder and weightier meanings than these, meanings 
 which often subvert and contradict the common and super- 
 ficial significations, and point out, as we have intimated, 
 many a seeming life to be a real death, and many a seeming 
 death to be but the development of a fuller and more real 
 life. 
 
 Tnie death consists not simply in a dissolution in the rela- 
 tions of a man's soul and body, but in a dissolution in the 
 relations between a man's soul and God's spirit. True life 
 consists not simply in preserving the natural union of man's 
 physical and intellectual constitution, but in preserving the 
 spiritual union between man's soul and God. 
 
 St. Paul exactly defines true life and death, when he 
 declares that " to be carnally minded is death ; but to be 
 spiritually minded is life and peace ;" that is, to yield to the 
 dictates of that fallen, fleshly, selfish nature by which the 
 first Adam separated the race from God, is death ; but to 
 yield to the dictates of that renewed, spiritual, divine 
 nature by which the second Adam reunites the race to God, 
 is " life and peace." Thus to be spiritually brought near 
 and made one with God is the only life indeed, and to be 
 
9 
 
 spiritually sundered and made distant from God, the only 
 death indeed. Apart from a vital, spiritual communion with 
 God, whatever show of life our lower powers may exhibit, 
 our existence can be but " a death in life ;" but with this 
 communion, whatever show of death the disintegration of 
 our lower powers may exhibit, there will still remain a "life 
 in death," It is because He is the rescuer of us from this 
 deeper death that Christ is most significantly " the Resurrec- 
 tion ;" it is because He is the imparter of this higher life that 
 Christ is most significantly " the Life." To lead its true life, 
 every living creature must fulfil the established divine law of 
 its own particular being. The life that the moss, the oak 
 and the lion manifest, is in each excellent and beautiful in 
 its degree ; but the oak, to live its true life, must live a 
 higher life than the moss ; the lion, to live his true life, 
 must live a higher life than either moss or oak. The higher 
 creature cannot be restricted to the lower creature's life and 
 not perish. Man, a spiritual and immortal creature, cannot 
 lead a simply mortal and natural life, and not undergo 
 spiritual death. We were made in the image of God, and 
 designed in our sphere to be actuated by the same holy im- 
 pulses as our Creator, to have the same fellowship with Dim, 
 and to have, as our ends, kindred spiritual pursuits. Accor- 
 ding as we come short in fulfilling this idea of our being, 
 our true life is destroyed, and spiritual death and confusion 
 ensue. 
 
 Who of us has not at times felt a sad consciousness that 
 he was less than he should be, that he has somehow failed to 
 meet the true design of his being? Who docs not at times 
 see before him an ideal human life far different from that 
 which he has actualised ? Who has not at times heard a 
 still small voice deep within, proclaiming with irresistible 
 force that he, the oflspring of the spiritual God, an lieir of 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 immortal existeuce, was created for some nobler purpose 
 than to go tlirougli that petty round of physical and intellec- 
 tual earthly labors and enjoyments, which make up a mere 
 worldly life, — eating, drinking, buying, selliag, struggling 
 for a little more empty social, professional or political 
 honor. 
 
 In tlic beautiful words of another*: " We all long, occa- 
 sionally at least, do wc not, for reconciliation with the Al- 
 mighty Spirit, tliat lives and breathes on every side of us, 
 in these skies and shores, these heart-beats in our breasts, 
 and these pulses of the ocean on the beach. Which one of 
 you is content — deeply, thoroughly content, with a decorous 
 and prosperous and cultured career ? Is there no crying out 
 from within for the living God ? Does not the infinite and 
 solemn mystery challenge us from the hours of suffering and 
 of silence and even of gladness itself V Does not the very 
 beauty of the eartli and the sea and the sky awaken an 
 awful sense of the ' light that never was on sea or shore V " 
 Wliat arc these dissatisfactions and yearniugs but sure re- 
 minders that a richer and sublimer life than the one we 
 naturally pursue has been intended for us ? Then in so far 
 as we have not lived this higher life, by reason of substitut- 
 ing in its place a lower life, we have lost it and become 
 spiritually dead. All of us must admit that this has been 
 our case. How then are we to be set right ? IIow is this 
 lost true life to be restored to us ? Can we bring it back 
 ourselves ? God and our own experience reply with an 
 earnest ' No !' The dead cannot raise themselves. The 
 Scriptures unqualifiedly declare " that the carnal mind is 
 not subject to God's law, neither indeed can be." However 
 distinct our perception that we ought to do so, we find, when 
 we are left to the direction and aid of our simply natural 
 
 *F. D. HuDtint'ton, D. D. 
 
11 
 
 impulses, that we do not succeed in brioging ourselves into 
 a peaceful, congenial, affectionate intercourse with our 
 Heavenly Faiher, that there is some estrangement and 
 obstruction between us which ever remains unremoved. 
 However desirable and beautiful in our better moments may 
 appear that life of purity, love, peace, holiness, heavenly 
 mindedncss, which our conscience approves as the fulfilment 
 of the divine law upon us, we find, on attempting to realize 
 it, that it is utterly beyond our unassisted attainment ; we 
 find " another law in our members warring against the law 
 of our mind." Our good sentiments, impulses, resolutions 
 come to no effect ; our passions, selfish desires, earthly- 
 mindodness still keep their dominion over us. We yet re- 
 main " deai in trespasses and sins." We cannot save 
 ourselves. " Who," then, " shall deliver us from the body 
 of this death ? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our 
 Lord," — our Resurrection and our Life. " God so loved the 
 world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever 
 believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting 
 life." " And this is the record, that God hath given to us 
 eternal life ; and this life is in His Son. Whosoever hath 
 the Son hath life ; and he that hath not the Son of God 
 hath not life." The sum and substance of the gospel is the 
 " good news " it brings of a restorer to impoverished and 
 undone men, of that true eternal life from which they have 
 fallen. Christ came not as a mere teacher or example, but 
 as the heavenly " bread of life," as the divine dispenser of 
 spiritual vitality to men. " He was manifested to abolish 
 death and briog life and immortality to light." By His 
 own death He destroys the penalty of man's death ; by his 
 personal in-dwelling through His Spirit, Ho destroys the 
 dominion of this death and brings to light a higher than the 
 original life. 
 
12 
 
 And this diviue life is accessible to us all. '' As in Adam 
 all die, so in Christ ' may' all be made alive." " Whosoever 
 will let him take of the water of life freely." " Whoso 
 coraeth to Mc I will in no wise cast out." All that we have 
 to do is to come to Christ ; to believe in Him as the life : 
 lilce St. Paul, " to live the life we live in the flesh by faith 
 in the Son of God." Faith in the appointed Savior is the 
 simple instrumentality through which descends the great 
 blessing. " The just shall live by faith." Can we but be 
 persuaded to exercise this faith, Christ will assuredly pour 
 into our thirsty souls those spiritual " living waters " which 
 shall be in us " a well of water springing up into everlas- 
 ting life ;" a new principle will be established in us ; affec- 
 tionate communion will be opened with our divine Father ; 
 greater harmony be introduced into the several parts of our 
 own nature ; a supernatural strength afforded us successfully 
 to conquer the world, the flesh and the devil ; and that 
 entire sanctification and ennobling of our being be begun, 
 to go on increasingly' through time, and when He that is our 
 resurrection shall bring our purified bodies and souls again 
 together for their higher immortal union, to be consummated 
 in that never to be interrupted state of holiness, where •' our 
 life shall be completely hid with Christ in God," and the 
 Life evermore dwell in us as God dwells in Him. 
 
 I do not know, dear friends, in this heavy grief with 
 which God has seen fit to afilict us, where we shall look for 
 more substantial consolation than in the just confidence wc 
 feel that he, whom we mourn, was and is a partaker of that 
 divine and imperishable life we have been describing. No 
 one familiar with our dear young brother's spiritual course 
 can doubt that " the life he lived in the flesh, he lived by 
 faith in the Son of God." No one can doubt that he was a 
 true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, With this assurance 
 
13 
 
 we cannot lament as for the dead. Our brother has depar- 
 ted from us, but he not is dead. He will no more go in and out 
 among us as was his wont. The earthly places which have 
 known him will now know him no more. This little sanctu- 
 ary will never again echo his voice raised in prayer and 
 {u-aise. His home and the homes of neighbors and associ- 
 ates will not again be brightened by his quiet, gladdening 
 presence. A solemn change has come over his physical 
 frame ; the spirit has separated from it. The soft light that 
 beamed from his eyes is now quenched. His heart and 
 pulse no longer beat. All his senses have become sealed 
 and his body is soon to be laid away in the earth to return 
 to its kindred dust. Yet he is not dead. He still lives. 
 The great author and sustainer of life makes us certain of 
 this. " Whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never 
 die." " He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet 
 shall he live." Under different and, as the Scriptures 
 assure us, under better conditions, in an existence unfamiliar 
 to us, he who has left us yet lives in all that constitutes the 
 best sense of life. Christ was his resurrection and life in 
 this world, and will continue to be his resurrection and life 
 in that other world, on which he has now entered. He has 
 only gone on to manifest, in a higher sphere and free from 
 the embarrassments of earth, that divine, eternal life which 
 was begun in him here. We may bewail our own loss, we 
 may bewail our deprivation of his conscious presence, of his 
 gentle looks, kind words and useful deeds ; but we cannot be- 
 wail his death ; for he is not dead. He has simply attained 
 to a higher form of life than we have yet reached. Now for 
 the first time indeed may he be said to truly and entirely live. 
 It is barely tlie accidentals surrounding his existence which 
 are affected by the great change which has come upon him ; 
 ;thc great, essential, vital principle of his being has only devel- 
 
14 
 
 oped into a fuller aud freer activity by it. What an inex- 
 pressible comfort, in a sorrow like curs, ought our Lord's 
 consoling words in the text, then, to be I 
 
 Most of you, who are assembled here, were personally ac- 
 quainted Avith Lucius BosTWiCK, and it needs no affirmation 
 of mine to make you aware that ho possessed a character of 
 no ordinary purity and sweetness. Having just entered 
 upon manhood, he had had comparatively little opportunity of 
 making the beautiful (qualities of his nature felt in the way 
 of public achievement ; yet it may be truthfully said that, 
 in those positions of public responsibility suitable to his age 
 which he had already occupied, he acc^uittcd himself with 
 marked credit to himself and to the satisfaction of those to 
 whom ho was responsible. But his life, until the last year, 
 was mainly spent among you in the quiet discharge of 
 private duties, and seldom are these duties more faithfully 
 performed tlian they were by him. His merit consisted, not 
 merely in the amount of actual accomplishment achieved, 
 but as much in tlie admirable spirit with which all he did 
 was performed. 
 
 The grace of God, acting upon a disposition of peculiar 
 natural amiability, enabled him indeed to present a char- 
 acter of rare lovliuess. Few persons so directly win 
 the confidence and afl'ection of all with whom ihey come in 
 contact. It seems impossible for one to have known him 
 and not to have loved him. From his childhood's com- 
 panions to his comrades in the army, his associates felt 
 towards him not only respect, but a peculiar warmth of 
 affection. It could hardly have been otherwise, exhibiting 
 tlie remarkable gentleness and unselfishness he did. He 
 possessed almost feminine delicacy and tenderness of feeling, 
 and from boyhood showed a consideration and thoughtful- 
 ness for the wants of others seldom seen. It had ever 
 
seemed one of his chief delights to find out some grateful 
 attention which he could offer to some one in need of it. 
 
 He was eminently humble and unobtrusive in feelicg and 
 deportment. Naturally retiring, he instinctively shrunk 
 from conspicuous positions and posts of responsibility. His 
 liigh conscientiousness often forced him into places of trust 
 which he would otherwise gladly have escaped occupying. 
 His unaffected modesty of manner and language I)oth bound 
 the hearts of all his old friends to him and at once attracted 
 all appreciative strangers to him. 
 
 He was above all characterized by a strong sense of duty. 
 This indeed was the great anchor as well as ornament of his 
 character. Once assured that a thing ought to be done, he, 
 at whatever personal cost, did it. Those of you, who are 
 familiar with the faithfulness with which he discharged his 
 obligations to his family, to his friends, to his church, at 
 home, in the array, or in whatever relation he was placed, 
 will bear witness to this. His strict conscientiousness and 
 lofty principle gave a vigor and firmness to his charac- 
 ter hardly to be expected in one by nature so yielding and 
 unassuming. Self distrustful as he was, he could always be 
 depended upon to do what he thouglit it became him to do. 
 
 It was the same controlling sense of duty wliich actuated 
 him in otlier circumstances, that impelled him to offer him- 
 self to that service in which he finally laid down his life. 
 Few, we believe, have taken 'ni arm? in defence of their 
 country, influenced by purer or more unselfish motives. 
 Constitutionally he was of anything but a martial spirit. His 
 nature was too merciful and kind for the necessary cruelties 
 of war in themselves not to be abhorrent to liira. But he 
 believed that our country needed the arm of her young sons to 
 save her from a fearful peril. He believed that, situated as he 
 was, he could better respond to this need than many others, 
 
16 
 
 and enlisting as a common soldier, he went forth with his 
 life in his hand, never, as it has pleased God, to bring that 
 life back again. 
 
 Our hearts may properly bleed at our own bereavement of 
 one so beautiful and brave and good, to many of whom he was 
 so inexpressibly dear, but we cannot sorrow for 1dm. lie 
 fought a good fight. As a man, as a soldier, as a Christian, 
 he performed well his part. He has gone to receive his 
 crown ; he has passed on higher; he has completed the most 
 difficult stage of human existence ; he has attained that goal 
 towards which God would have all his human creatures tend 
 — a blessed immortality. 
 
 It is no fiction, dear brethren, that he who believes in 
 Jesus Christ shall " never die." There is no more substan- 
 tial reality than that Jesus Christ is, to those who receive 
 Him, an actual, eternal resurrection and life. The eternal 
 Vine itself may as soon perish as those branches which it 
 supplies with its living sap. Since he, whom we loved so 
 well, is not perished, but has only ascended to a fuller life, 
 though we sorrow, we may do it with a high and holy hope 
 for him, — and for ourselves, if we share in that life he pos- 
 sessed here, that wc too, not long hence, shall go to share 
 with him, in that more glorious life which he possesses now, 
 in that blessed region where there shall ))c " no more death, 
 neither sorrow, nor crying," but where we shall enjoy an 
 endless existence of inconceivable purity and bliss, in the 
 immediate presence of Ilim who is our " Resurrection and 
 our Life." 
 
y /l4