world as a victim and propitiation, and as such offered himself to God; that his birth, his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, and his intercession at the right hand of the Father, and his presence in the holy eucharist, all belong to one and the same sacrifice. To conclude: we are informed, that what was accomplished in Jesus Christ, must be accomplished also in his members.

Let us then consider life as a sacrifice; and let the accidents of life make no other impression on us than as, in proportion, the accomplishment of this sacrifice is either interrupted or promoted by them. Let us style nothing ill but what turns the sacrifice of God into the sacrifice of the devil: and let us honour all such things with the name of good, as render that which was a sacrifice to the devil in Adam, a sacrifice to God in Jesus Christ. Let us examine the notion of death by this rule and principle.

In order to which design, it is necessary to have recourse to the person of Jesus Christ: for, as God regards not men but through him as a mediator; so neither ought we to regard ourselves, or others, but with respect to the same mediation.

If we look not through this medium, we shall discern nothing but either real pains, or detestable pleasures; but if we see all things as in Jesus Christ, all will conspire for our consolation, satisfaction, and edification.

Let us reflect on death as in Jesus Christ, not as without Jesus Christ. Without Jesus Christ, it is dreadful, it is alarming, it is the terror of nature. In Jesus Christ, it is fair and amiable, it is good and holy, it is the joy of the saints. All events being rendered sweet in Jesus Christ, death itself has a share in the influence. To redeem us, and sanctify death and sufferings to us, was the reason for which he suffered and died; who, as he was God and man in one person, com

prised, at once, whatever was great and illustrious, whatever was humble and obscure; that he might sanctify all things in himself, sin only excepted, and might be the standing model of all characters and conditions.

Would we know what death is, what it is in Jesus Christ, we must examine the regard which it bears to his continual, uninterrupted sacrifice. And we may observe, that in sacrifices the principal part is the death of the victim. The oblation and sanctification, which precede, are indeed the dispositions, but death is still the completion; in which, by renouncing its very life and being, the creature pays to God the utmost homage of which it is capable; thus humbling, and as it were annihilating itself, before the eyes of his majesty, and adoring his supreme existence, who alone essentially exists. There was indeed another part to be performed after the death of the sacrifice, without which it was vain and ineffectual, namely, the acceptance of it by God. This is meant by the Scripture expression, Odoratus est Deus odorem suavitatis. But this, though it crowned the sacrifice, was rather an action of God towards the creature, than of the creature towards God; and did not hinder, but that the last act of the creature was still determined by its death.

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We find each of these circumstances fulfilled in our Lord, upon his coming into the world. Through the Eternal Spirit, he offered himself up to God." (Heb. ix. 14; x. 5, 7.) "When he cometh into the world, he saith, sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not: then said I, Lo I come to do thy will, O God. Thy law is within my heart." (Psal. xl.) We have here his oblation, and his sanctification immediately followed. His sacrifice continued through his life, and was finished by his death. It was needful for him "to suffer these things, and to enter into his glory." (Luke xxiv. 26.) Though he was a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which

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he suffered." (Heb. v. 8.) "In the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, he was heard in that he feared." (Heb. v. 7.) Finally, God raised him again by his glorious power (of which the fire which fell from heaven upon the sacrifices, was a type,) to burn and consume, as it were, his mortal body, and to exalt and restore him to a life of glory.

The sacrifice of Jesus Christ being thus perfected, as to the action, by his death, and as to the subject, by his resurrection, (when the image of the body of sin was absorbed in glory,) he had performed all that was on his part; and there remained nothing, but that the sacrifice should be accepted of God, and that, as incense, it should ascend, and carry up its odour to the throne of the Divine majesty. In pursuance of which, our Lord was perfectly offered, lifted up, and received at God's throne, at his ascension; which he effected by his power, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, with which he was every way encompassed and replenished. He was carried up as the odour of the sacrifices by the air which supported it; the former of which prefigured himself, and the latter represented the Holy Spirit. And the Acts of the Apostles expressly report, that he was received into heaven to give as an assurance that this holy sacrifice, accomplished on earth, was received and accepted in the bosom of his Father.

Let us not then be sorry as Gentiles without hope, for our departed Christian friends. Our loss of them is not to be dated from the hour of their death. To speak properly, we then lost them, when they were admitted into the church by baptism. Ever since that admission, they were not ours, but God's; their life was devoted and consecrated to God; their actions bore no regard to the things of this world, but for the sake of God. By

their death they are at length entirely disengaged from sin; and it is at this moment that they are accepted by God, and that their sacrifice receives its accomplishment and crown.

They have now performed what they vowed; they have finished the work which God gave them to do; they have discharged that which was the only end of their creation. The will of God is perfected in them; and their will is swallowed up in the Divine. What, therefore, God has joined together let not us put asunder; but, by a right understanding, and true judgment, let us suppress, or at least moderate the sentiments of corrupt and mistaken nature, which exhibits nothing but false images, and whose illusions disturb the sanctity of those thoughts which, from the instruction of Christian truth, we ought to have derived.

Let us form our ideas of human dissolution, not on the Pagan, but on the Christian model; that is, let them, as St Paul enjoins, be built on hope, the especial gift and privilege of Christians. Let us look on the remains of a deceased friend, not as a noisome and infectious carcase, according to the fallacious portrait of nature; but, according to the assurance of faith, as the eternal and inviolable temple of the Holy Ghost.

Let us not consider the faithful, who are departed in the grace of God, as having ceased to live, which is the false suggestion of nature; but as now beginning to live, which is the infallible testimony of truth. Let us look on their souls not as annihilated and lost, but as quickened and enlivened, and united to the sovereign life. And, by attending to these sound doctrines, let us correct the prejudices of error, which are so firmly rooted in our mind, and the apprehensions of fear, which are so strongly imprinted on our sense.

• God created man with a principle of love of a twofold kind; one for his Creator, the other for himself; but

on this condition, that the love of his Creator should be infinite, that is, should have no other end but God; and that the love of himself should be finite, with a constant regard and reserve to his Creator.

Man, in this estate, not only loved himself without sin; but had sinned, could he possibly have ceased to love himself.

By the entrance of sin into the world man was deprived of the former of these affections; and his soul, which was still great, and still capable even of an infinite passion, retaining only the latter, this immediately diffused itself, and overflowed all the mighty space which had been evacuated by the love of God. And thus we came to love only ourselves, and to love ourselves infinitely, that is, to love all things with respect only to ourselves.

Behold the origin of self-love! It was natural to Adam; it was, during his innocence, regular and just; but became immoderate and criminal, upon his fall. Behold the genuine source of this love, together with the unhappy cause of its viciousness and excess!

The same will hold true of our desire of dominion, of our aversion to business, and of many the like natural motions. And this whole doctrine may be easily applied to our present subject. The fear of death, to Adam in innocence, was not only natural, but just; because human life being then not disagreeable to God, ought to have been agreeable to man; and death, for the same reason, ought to have been an object of horror, as threatening to cut off a life which was conformable to the Divine will. But upon man's transgression, his life was debased and corrupted; his soul and body were set at variance one with another, and both with God.

When this fatal change had infected and impaired the holiness of life, the love of life continued still; and, the fear of death remaining with no less vigour, that