his dear friends and converts, only "to lie in cold obstruction:" was it to depart and to be with the worms, that he counted a better lot? No! but he did count it "better to depart and be with Christ,"to be with Him in that Paradise to which he had before been caught up, and to hear again those, on earth, unutterable words.

In the same sense is the term Paradise used by our Saviour himself, and with a force of application, if possible, still more conclusive. To the prayer of the penitent malefactor on the cross "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom," his reply we know was-" To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." Thus, though in respect to the final coming into his kingdom he declined to specify to his disciples "the times and the seasons which the Father had kept in his own power," in respect to the entering into Paradise, he determined distinctly the time at which the reward of repentant faith begins, and he fixed it, brethren, by this reply, for the very day of death.

In

Here, I say, is a conclusive declaration from Him, who best could tell and with this, as might be expected, all the incidental lights which fall upon the subject from other parts of scripture coincide. the scene for instance of the Transfiguration, the appearance and converse of Moses and Elijah on the holy mount, are based on the same truth, and it is again implied in the parable which represents Lazarus as carried by angels, at the moment of death,

to Abraham's bosom. That parable contains also, in the description of the rich man's end, a notice of the irretrievable misery into which the souls of the unrighteous and worldly are plunged, immediately on entering the disembodied state. And an actual and terrible example is intimated by the scripture history, in the account of the fate of the traitor Judas, who is said, with an awful significance of brevity, to have "gone to his own place."

Thus much respecting the state of the dead was received by the Church, in its first and purest days. In process of time these truths were overlaid with many inventions, the notions of heathen philosophy were heaped on the doctrine of scripture: the poetical fiction that the soul stained by the flesh "is purged in fires, till all the dregs are drained and all the lust expires," was transferred to Christian churches by Roman Catholic schoolmen: masses for the dead were superadded; promises were held out by the priesthood, that they could deliver the souls from the pains of that fabulous purgatory; the faith and feelings of men, were misdirected into the channel of a superstitious devotion; and religion was incumbered with the spurious articles of a creed too presumptuous for piety to approve, and too precarious for reason to defend.

The Church of England, brethren, has pruned away this wild growth of unfounded opinion and reverted to "the faith once delivered to the saints ;" she admits no invocation of the souls in Paradise,

no privileged altars for them that are gone to their own place; yet ever cautious not to reject the sound grain with the chaff, the Church of England holds fast the scriptural doctrine of an intermediate state and incorporates it in the thanksgivings and prayers of our liturgy. We believe, with the primitive church, that the glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of the prophets, the noble army of martyrs, do mingle their praises with ours; in our funeral service we profess "that the souls of the faithful, after they are delivered from the burden. of the flesh, are with the Lord, in joy and felicity," and pray that the bliss they enjoy in Paradise, may soon be completed in heaven, that "we, with all those that are departed in the true faith of God's holy name, may have our perfect consummation in his eternal and everlasting glory."

This is the legitimate use which we are entitled to make of the doctrine of this text; we have a right, brethren, to comfort one another with these words; we have good grounds in reflecting on them, to dry the mourners' tears, and for ourselves, to cast away the dread of death. For if to die be not to be laid in a place of darkness, nor to endure a long apprenticeship of scorching pains, but to seek at once the warm precincts of a more cheerful day and enter a Paradise of bliss, why should we be afraid of death ? Or why should we sorrow for them that sleep in Jesus, if thus to sleep, be not to be wrapped in a senseless trance, nor haunted by horrid dreams, but

having, in the article of death, slept this painful life away, then to enjoy the conscious rest of the people of God, to eat the fruit of the tree of life in a new garden of Eden, to find ourselves dwelling with the spirits of just men made perfect, the general assembly and church of the First-born which are written in heaven, in a place of blessed repose frequented by an innumerable company of angels, lighted by the presence of the Mediator of the new covenant, and crowned with the favour of the Judge of all?

Weep not for the dead then which die in the Lord. Fear not, brethren, if at least you are living in the love of Christ, and walking in the steps of his most holy life, fear not to follow Him along the path that leads to so pleasing and peaceable a state: doubt not that for them who sleep in Him, to die is gain, stedfastly believe with that assurance which belongs to a faith built on no sandy foundation, that whenever God's good time shall come, it will be well for you, and your's to be taken up into paradise: "it will be far better to depart and to be with Christ;" to be "absent from the body and present with the Lord," is a state which in so far as your faith resembles that of the apostle Paul, you will not only cease to deprecate, but even learn devoutly to desire.

Sifted by Satan.

Bishopthorpe :

Before the Duchess of Kent and Princess Victoria.

LUKE Xxii. 31.

"SIMON, SIMON, BEHOLD, SATAN HATH DESIRED TO HAVE YOU, THAT HE MAY SIFT YOU AS WHEAT: BUT I HAVE PRAYED FOR THEE, WHEN THOU ART CONVERTED,

THAT THY FAITH FAIL NOT: AND

STRENGTHEN THY BRETHREN."

IN

the language of modern theology the use of the word Conversion is commonly confined to the first turning of a heathen or an infidel to Christ: by some persons its application is further extended to the change which takes place in nominal members of the Church of God at the first dawning of Christian principle on the mind and the commencement of a religious life.

But, in Scripture, the term has no such limited meaning: the word which, in the present text, is rendered "converted" in other places is translated simply turned, turned back, returned: thus whether it is said that "the shepherds returned, glorifying God for what they had seen and heard," or that "Jesus turned back in the crowd" to enquire who had touched him, or whether, in a metaphorical sense, Christians are warned of the danger of turning from the holy commandments delivered

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