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of Christ, in which" (I use the powerful expression of a living prelate of the English Church), "in which the action and suffering of our Great High Priest are represented, and offered to God on earth, as they are continually by the same High Priest himself in heaven; Christ in heaven presenting the sacrifice, and applying it to its purposed end, properly and gloriously; the church on earth commemorating, and humbly, yet really and effectually, by praying to God (with thanksgiving) in the virtue and merit of that sacrifice which it thus exhibits."*

And, once more, in that especial act of ministerial remission, of which we have been speaking in this sermon, Whither do we refer our authority but to the express commission of Christ himself? Whither do we refer the purchase of that pardon, for the world sufficiently, and for the church effectually, which we pronounce to the members of the church individually, but to the blood of Christ, shed for us, and for many, for the remission of sins? We do this implicitly when we limit this privilege to the church; for the church, and every privilege of the church, Christ hath purchased with his blood: we do this expressly, whenever we declare that the remission which we pronounce is effectual only to those who truly repent, and unfeignedly believe the holy Gospel : and if on any one

* The Bishop of Exeter's Charge in 1836; of which, if a simple presbyter may be allowed the privilege of expressing his admiration of a bishop's sentiments, I would say, that the last seven pages are beyond all praise.

point there is a full consent of all the offices of our church, and all the voice of antiquity, with the Word of God, it is on this,-that while every spiritual blessing which we receive, we receive through the merits of Christ, the blessing of forgiveness we receive especially through his blood: and while every ministration of each several blessing is but an application of the fruits of Christ's merits to individuals, or to churches; the ministration of reconciliation is but an application to those on whose behalf the stewards of the mysteries of God exercise that ministry, of the fruits of Christ's death and passion.

But, had I said less upon this latter subject, I should not have been afraid of leading you into speculative error. It is not the prevailing fault of the present day to derogate in theory from the alone sufficiency of Christ's blood; and God forbid that such a fault should ever prevail among us! Were the operative principle of faith within us as correct as our theological expressions it were well. While some wrangle about the speculative errors of those who seek remission from bare repentance, without any hope in an atonement; and others reprobate those who lower, or seem to lower, the duty of repentance, while they set forth the true and most important doctrines of sovereign and free grace: while some set themselves to expose a system of priestly domination and a blasphemous assumption of the prerogatives of the Most High; and others uselessly expend their pity or their ridicule on those who have fled from the

church and its privileges, yet walk proud and contented in their poverty; be it ours to search our own hearts, and to exercise ourselves in the graces of that faith which we truly profess: so doing, we shall receive the benefits, the comfort and consolation, of the ministry of reconciliation, reverently and humbly, yet with all confidence exercised; and walking here in holy assurance and hope, in the joy and peace of believing, we shall stand, at the last, among those whose array is brilliant as the light, because they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

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SERMON XIX.

THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY.

1 COR. xv. 22.-As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

WE hold it among our highest dignities and privileges, that we partake of a nature spiritual and eternal; yet it is strange in how great a degree our thoughts and attentions are arrested and enslaved by our mortal bodies, and by the material and fugitive objects around us. Nothing, be it ever so insignificant, can be brought frequently under our notice, without awakening in us some kind and degree of interest; and even to such things as may be replaced by others with no loss, or even with an addition of convenience or pleasure, we are connected by a kind of attachment which makes us complacently enjoy their presence and querulously resent their removal; while any great revolution in the state of the external objects around us, or in our own habitation, makes us restless and uneasy. For the spot of earth, where

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he has experienced for years the changes and vicissitudes of life, many an one conceives an affection so strong, as to cross ocean and continent, that he may end his days where he began them, and lay his bones to moulder beside the bones already mouldered of those who, before him, inhabited and loved the same paternal ground.

From an attachment to what is purely material, we rise to that affection with which we love our friends and return their kindness; a connexion which it is, perhaps, very graceful and plausible to refer entirely to spirit, to intellect, and to pure sentiment. But what is the real truth of the matter? How many of the common offices of the most enlightened, and lofty, and pure friendship consist in a reciprocation of benefits, in the first instance, at least, external; and whose effects warm the heart, only because they have already charmed, or comforted, or soothed, some bodily sense? And what is the last and best device to solace the grief of absence, but the perpetuating of the visible and corporeal forms and features of our friends? And what is the occupation of Fancy, when she most fully brings before us, either for solace or for wo, the remembrance of the departed? Does she not more than emulate the chiselled marble and the glowing canvass, and excel the sculptor's and the painter's art in her exquisite mimicry? And if there is no attachment to the very bodies of our friends, whence the affectionate care with which we still watch their lifeless remains; whence that reluctant obedience which

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