an inexhaustible source of patience, fortitude, and joy. Do they feel the law of the members warring against the law of the spirit, and exciting commotions which bring innocence to the very brink of the precipice? They are not ignorant, that after the dissolution of the earthly frame, it shall be restored to them pure and celestial; and that, delivered from these bonds of misery, they shall then resemble the heavenly spirits; and that remembrance soothes and strengthens them. Do they groan under the weight of the yoke of Jesus Christ; and their faith, more weak, is it on the point of relaxing and sinking under the rigid duties of the gospel? Ah! the day of the Lord is nigh; they almost touch the blessed recompense; and the end of their course, which they already see, animates, and gives them fresh vigour. Hear in what manner the apostle consoled the first Christians: My brethren, said he to them, time is short, the day approaches, the Lord is at the gate, and he will not delay: rejoice then; I again say to you, rejoice. Such was the only consolation of men, persecuted, insulted, proscribed, trampled upon, regarded as the scum of the earth, the disgrace of the Jews, and the scoff of the Gentiles. They knew that death would soon dry up their tears; that for them there would then be neither mourning, sorrow, nor sufferance; that all would be changed: and that thought softened every pain. Ah! whosoever had told these generous justifiers of faith, that the Lord would never make them know death, but would leave them to dwell for ever on the earth, would have shaken their faith, tempted their constancy, and, by robbing them of that hope, would have deprived them of every consolation.
You, my brethren, are, no doubt, little surprised at this, because death must appear a refuge to men afflicted and unhappy as they were. You are mistaken; it was neither their persecutions nor sufferings which occasioned their distress and sorrow; these were their joy, consolation, and pride; we glory, said they, in tribulations; it was the state of separation in which they still lived from Jesus Christ, that alone was the source of their tears, and what rendered death so desirable.
While we are in the body, said the apostle, we are separated from the Lord; and that separation was a state of anguish and sorrow to these faithful Christians. Piety consists in wishing for a re-union with Jesus Christ, our Head; in sighing for the happy moment which shall incorporate us with the chosen of God, in that mystical body, which, from the beginning of the world is forming, of every tongue, every tribe, and every nation; which is the completion of the designs of God, and which will glorify him, with Jesus Christ, to all eternity. Here we are like branches torn from their stem; like strangers wandering in a foreign land; like fettered captives in a prison, waiting their deliverance; like children, banished for a time from their paternal inheritance and mansion: in a word, like members separated from their body. Since Jesus Christ, our Head, ascended to heaven, the earth is no longer the place of our establishment: we look forward, in blessed expectation, to the coming of
