therefore, receives all who have professed communion with her, and remained in that profession to the hour of death, with the same greeting: but I repeat, that all her expressions, as to the future condition of the departed, are those of extreme caution. She commits the body to the ground, indeed, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life;' but therein she expresses only her faith in a doctrine generally, and without necessary reference to its bearing on the condition of any individual deceased, of whom the most she says is, that she hopes that he rests in Christ. She knows that there will be a resurrection unto death, as well as a resurrection unto life: she knows that of them that sleep in the dust of the earth some shall awake to shame and everlasting contempt, and some to everlasting life;-that some will be placed on the left hand of the Judge, and some on His right;-that the goats will be parted from the sheep,-the tares from the wheat; but who shall be saved and who shall be lost it is not her's to decide, and,

1 And we must be careful to observe that her expression is "the resurrection," not "his resurrection."

therefore, as has been well said, she would fain cherish the belief, "that even where the darkest uncertainty may hover apparently over the future lot of the departed, all may be raised to life everlasting, all may come to a joyful resurrection for Jesus Christ's sake, rather than, even in any such instance to take it for granted, and positively to presume to pronounce, that the individual is excluded from all hope of good."

But in proportion as the Church is lenient in her judgment, ought each of us, as individuals, to be strict with ourselves. It were vain to hope that all who have called themselves her children will be owned as such by the Judge of quick and dead at the last day. Great as our privileges are, our privileges cannot save us. Nothing but Christ can save us, and even He cannot save us unless our course be one of obedience or repentance. For us He hath endured the sharpness of His Father's anger, for us He hung upon the Cross, for us He endured a load of shame, and ignominy, and agony, such as is beyond our power to calculate or fathom. In His own Self He bare our sins

He was

in His own Body on the tree. wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. His we have been made: His we are: we are bought with a price. And yet, despite of all this, there is no period of our existence in which we may not forfeit all our blessings, frustrate the gracious intentions of the Most High towards us, and make of none effect, so far as we are concerned, those ineffable and inestimable sufferings which the Son of God endured on Calvary. It is possible that we may do such things, and possible that we may do them without being aware of it. Our hearts are deceitful: it is not difficult to blind our own eyes and those of others: we may persuade ourselves that we are faithful children of the Church, and in her outward communion we may die. And yet, when all is done, we may be found in the number of those for whom no place is reserved in heaven, and whose mortal bodies, when raised from the grave, shall never be made like unto Christ's glorious Body, but shall only be endowed

with a capacity to live for ever in misery never to be mitigated, in tribulation and anguish irremediable, inevitable.

How fearful, how utterly appalling is this reflection! It is agony to think of it: but perdition to forget it. May God have mercy upon us, and write it in our hearts. May it please Him to fill us with a spirit of holy fear, and to give us such comforts as may save us from despair. dear Son's sake, help us

and give us peace at last.

May He, for His

to obey Him here, Amen.

LECTURE XI.

ON THE ANTHEM AFTER THE INTERMENT.

Considerations on the Entermediate State.

REVELATIONS XIV. 13.

"AND I HEARD A VOICE FROM HEAVEN SAYING UNTO ME, WRITE, BLESSED ARE THE DEAD WHICH DIE IN THE LORD FROM HENCEFORTH: YEA, SAITH THE SPIRIT, THAT THEY MAY REST FROM THEIR LABOURS, AND THEIR WORKS DO FOLLOW THEM."

THE voice and words here recorded form part of that most glorious vision of the Apocalypse, wherein it was vouchsafed to the beloved disciple to see the Lamb standing on Mount Sion, surrounded with the blessed company which follows Him whithersoever He goeth, the guileless, virgin host, the first fruits of the redeemed, who, in white robes washed in Blood, with palms of tri