Saviour, amidst many sorrows and afflictions, he would wish entirely to disregard himself, and would be only desirous to excite his younger brethren to new zeal and devotedness in that service, that they might fill up his vacant post, might partake of the peace and satisfaction which he had found in the discharge of its duties, and might at length receive that crown of righteousness which is reserved for the faithful.

In the considerations, then, which I shall offer on this occasion, it will be my aim to enter, if possible, into the spirit of this fine passage, and employ the animating testimony,

I. OF THE APOSTLE HIMSELF; and then,

II. OF THE BELOVED AND VENERATED SUBJECT OF THE PRESENT DISCOURSE ; for the purpose,

III. Of urging you, my Christian brethren, to RENEWED EARNESTNESS in occupying the sta tion of those who are removed from us, by running the same race, and wrestling in the same combat. It will, to this end, be my sincere desire, not to panegyrize the dead, but to edify the living; not to seek the gratification of a fleeting curiosity, but to aim at the advancement, in some humble measure, of the glory of our Saviour Christ. May that Saviour, by his most blessed Spirit, direct us aright! May

he so assist us by his grace, that we may ourselves become followers of the holy Apostle, and of the excellent person whose death we are more immediately to notice; yea, of all those who through faith and patience inherit the mises 2!

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I. The language of the Apostle, as it regards himself, expresses the calmness with which he contemplates his approaching death; the grateful exultation with which he reviews the whole period of his labours; and the holy triumph with which he anticipates the crown of glory which was laid up for him. As to the present, he awaited his death with composure; as to the past, he reflected on his course with joy; as to the future, he looked forward to heaven with ardent expectation.

1. He speaks of his death with calmness. I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. This is the language of a composed and tranquil mind. The Apostle does not even name his dissolution by its proper term. He calls it not death; no; it is not so much that terrible and fearful stroke which sin inflicts on our fallen nature, as that transmission to the presence of God which faith reveals. If, therefore, he regards its sacredness,

2 Heb. vi. 12.

it is an offering unto God; or if he considers it as a removal from his labours, à departure to a better and heavenly country. The aged Apostle, indeed, well knew that he was about to suffer by the hand of violence; but this moved him not. In describing this event, he bestows not a word on the external instruments of his death, nor even on its peculiar nature: he looks only to the cause for which he was to suffer, and the acceptance and grace of his Saviour. His martyrdom was in this view the pouring out of a libation on a sacrifice3; a sacred act; a part of his religious devotion. He seems to speak of it with the noble dedication of mind which he expresses in another passage, None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself; for whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord; whether we live therefore or die, we are the Lord's. Or rather in the still more triumphant tone of his language to the Philippian converts: Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you alls. Every Christian, it is true, presents his body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is his reasonable service; but the martyr who seals his doctrine with his blood, may, with a peculiar emphasis,

8 Ἐγὼ γὰρ ἤδη σπένδομαι.

5 Phil. ii. 17.

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• Rom. xiv. 7, 8.

6 Rom. xii. 1.

be described as offered unto God. Such a sacrifice is not indeed the ransom of our souls, the expiation of our sins, or the meritorious cause of our justification :-in this higher import our Lord and Saviour hath by one offering perfected for ever them that are sanctified" ;—but it is an example of patience, it is an act of fidelity, it is a confirmation of the truth of the Gospel, it is a great and acceptable proof of our love to Christ, it is a consecration, in the most trying exigency, of our bodies and souls to his service. In this view, death, however violent, is stripped of its ordinary character; it becomes a sacred and voluntary offering unto God, on which the sufferer at the time may look with cheerfulness, and the surviving church afterwards with joy.

For in truth, if we consider the removal of the Apostle from the present scene of things, it was only his departure to a purer and happier world. He speaks not of it as a privation or a banishment. It is the sojourner who, having tarried for a season, takes up his tent at the time appointed, and moves onward to another place. It is a child who has been in exile and under sufferings and afflictions, and who is now recalled to his father's house. It is the stranger and pilgrim whose home is not on earth, who has long been expecting the time of his de

parture to a better country, that is, an heavenly, and who, receiving at length the notice of his dismissal, hails the summons with unspeakable complacency. The expression marks a holy contempt of death. It is in the same spirit that our Apostle speaks in his Epistle to the Corinthians: We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. St. Peter also has a similar sentiment, when he says, in his second Epistle, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me. Thus is death overcome by faith. Whatever pains or sufferings may attend it, it is only an offering of obedience and devotion to God; whatever separations it may occasion, it is only a removal to heavenly mansions. The Apostle speaks of it in either view with composure and even cheerfulness, according to his earnest expectation and his hope, that in nothing he should be ashamed; but with all boldness, as always, so then also, Christ should be magnified in his body, whether it were by life or by death. All the ill that death could do him, was to release the soul from

8 Heb. xi. 16.

2 Peter, i. 13, 14..

92 Cor. v. 1.

2 Phil. i. 20.