be afraid for "the pestilence that walketh in darkness," any more than "for the sickness that destroyeth in the noon-day."

This entire rest and tranquillity of God's faithful servants, when they lay them down on their bed at night, is beautifully expressed in the text by the words, "I will lay me down in peace," as they stand in the original language. "I will lay me down," says holy David, "all together" all my powers of mind and body, agreeing as it were one with another; not torn by violent passions, by desire on the one hand and remorse on the other; not in the condition of the natural man as described by St. Paul, The good that I would I do not, but the evil that I would not that I do:" and again, "I delight in the Law of GOD after the inward man, but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind: " not so is it with him, of whom the Psalmist here speaks, but rather he resembles the spiritual man, as described by the same St. Paul : The very GOD of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray GoD your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our LORD JESUS CHRIST."

Another thing seems worth observing here, which indeed I have already touched on: how Catholic, that is, Universal, is the thought expressed by this verse of the Psalmist: there is no one condition or state of life which it suits better than another; it belongs alike to you, to me, to all. For why? the need of taking rest in sleep is an universal law of God's Providence over men here in this lower world. In respect of it there is no difference between the highest and the lowest. Therefore, as death, so sleep, may be truly called a great leveller. The greatest king and the meanest of his subjects, whatever difference there is between them at any given time of their waking moments, must alike surrender themselves up, and fall down helpless, and forget themselves in sleep, before a great many hours are over. Το every one of us, one as much as another, there will then be but one chance of safety; that is, if God should be pleased to watch over us, and be with us, when we are away from ourselves. It is one of God's ways of continually reminding us all, what frail helpless beings we are; what an absolute nothing without HIM.

But as sleep is the image of death, and as the slumber of every night, rightly understood, is to a Christian a kind of sacramen

tal token of that last long sleep; so these same words may well be used, and always have been understood by devout persons as most proper for a dying Christian also, "I will lay me down in peace, and take my rest, for it is Thou, LORD, only who makest me dwell in safety."

I

say "of a dying Christian:" for such an one only has a warrant from Holy Scripture to regard death as no more than a quiet sleep. Observe how these expressions, "fallen asleep," "sleeping in JESUS," and the like, are always used in the New Testament. They are constantly employed to denote the death, not of any persons, but of those who die in the LORD. Thus, our SAVIOUR speaking of Lazarus, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep." Thus of the holy Martyr St. Stephen; when he had prayed for his murderers, "he fell asleep." Thus St. Paul speaks with horror of some men's notion that there was no resurrection, because in that case it must follow that those who are "fallen asleep in CHRIST are perished.' Thus, in another place he assures the Thessalonians, that "those who sleep in JESUS HE will bring with HIM," when He comes to raise the dead.

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Quiet sleep, therefore, is the image of their death, who die as living members of the Holy JESUS: whom the FATHER, therefore, acknowledging them as His children, receives at their death into the Everlasting Arms. As for others who have so lived and died, as finally to forfeit their baptismal privileges, and cut themselves off from the Body of CHRIST, no such promise; be sure, belongs to them; they have their part in a very different text: "The wicked," says the Prophet, "are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my GoD, unto the wicked."

Now as all the blessings which we have or hope for, either in this world or in the next, depend on the Passion of our LORD and SAVIOUR, and are to be referred to it; so this blessing, of laying ourselves down in peace, and taking our rest, whether in our bed or in our grave, seems to bear an especial relation to the mystery of this day, the burial of JESUS CHRIST. By virtue of our heavenly and spiritual union with HIM, our buried LORD, we hope for safe and quiet sleep, after the work and service of each day of our trial, and for a slumber yet safer and quieter, when that trial

is quite over; a comfortable place in Paradise for our souls, and for our bodies a grave on which God's blessing shall rest. Our warrant for this hope is, that the Son of GOD died for us, bought us to be His own with His precious blood: bought us to be His own in such sort, that we should be really joined to HIM, mystically made members of His Body, and as such have a share, as in His Cross and Passion here, so in the heavenly and eternal good things, wherewith GoD crowned HIM in the world out of sight. As members, inseparable members, of the Man CHRIST JESUS, we hope to have our bodies buried with HIM; and for our souls, our true selves, we hope that when they pass away from our bodies, they may be with HIM that day in Paradise.

Except we have this hope in us, I do not see how we can well apply to ourselves the comfortable words of the Psalm. For those words are spoken by David in the person of JESUS CHRIST and His Church, after the manner of most of the Divine Psalms. Whence it follows, that none but members of CHRIST and His Church, properly speaking, have any right to use those words. But they may they may truly say with their LORD, "Thou hast set me at liberty when I was in trouble:" they may complain with HIM of the children of this world, "blaspheming His and their honour, following vanity, seeking after lies;" and in like manner, as He said on the Cross, (and they seem to have been His very last words,) "FATHER, into Thy hands I commend my spirit," so they may, every night of their lives, and still more when the night of death draws on, gather and compose all their thoughts and affections into that one most exalting and soothing thought of all, that they are about to fall asleep in His arms, Who long ago, when they were little children, took them up, marked them for His own, and blessed them.

Let us dwell for a while upon this thought, for surely it must do us good, if we really put our minds to it. How is it that in sleep, and still more in death, Christian men may humbly depend on a peculiar presence of our LORD JESUS CHRIST to guard

them?

First, because He is that King, who has promised to His people Israel," HE will not suffer thy foot to be moved, and HE that keepeth thee will not sleep. Behold HE that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." CHRIST is the King who makes that

promise, and we are the Israel to whom the promise is made. Whether over His whole Church, or over each member of the same who has not forfeited the blessed privilege, His word stands sure; "The LORD is thy Keeper, the LORD is thy defence on thy right hand, so that the sun shall not burn thee by day, neither the moon by night:" nothing at all shall really hurt thee. And when thou seemest to be most helpless, as in sleep and in death, then is the fatherly care of thy King most engaged to watch over thee, as He watched when thou wast a child, cast on HIM from the womb, and on thy mother's breasts.

Again; as in every other part of our life,-in all things that we do and suffer-so in this act of laying ourselves down, either to sleep or to die, comes in the remembrance and the power of our LORD's sacrifice. That deep sleep of His, on the Cross and in the grave, hath sanctified and blessed the sleep of all penitent Christians for all time to come, whether in their beds or in the bosom of the earth. Doubt it not, there are angels to watch their graves, as they watched His; so as that not one of their hallowed and purified bodies shall be missing at the last day. And here by the way is one reason more, for dealing more reverentially and cautiously with the tombs of the dead, and the places where they lie, than too many are apt to do.

But in respect of our LORD's Sacrifice, how it makes our sleep quiet we may in some measure understand, by considering what it is which is the great disturber of that sleep: it is Sin, either in itself, or in its punishment-disease and misery. Therefore to know that CHRIST has died for you, and to have a reasonable hope, grounded on a good conscience, that blemished as you are with many infirmities, you have not forfeited the blessing of Hist death; this is the secret of good nights, truly called such, here, and of a quiet and comfortable death-bed when our time shall "Good night,” in a Christian's mouth, is a solemn word : it is as much as to say, "May the shadow of the Cross be over you; your sins be forgiven, and you continue a living member of JESUS CHRIST."

come.

Once more; we are taught in Holy Scripture to regard the Holy Sacrament of the Body and Blood of CHRIST as one very especial safeguard for the sleeping until they wake, and for the dead until they rise again. In this sense, more particularly, may

it be said to JESUS CHRIST, "Thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety." "For as the FATHER hath life in HIMSELF, SO hath HE given to the SON to have life in HIMSELF;" the WORD of GOD made flesh, "the last Adam, is a quickening," a life-giving, "spirit." HE" quickens our" very "mortal bodies, by His SPIRIT that dwelleth in us." Now this blessing, HE HIMSELF assures us, depends on our partaking of His Body and Blood. "" Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you." And no less clearly has HE assured us, that the Holy Bread and Wine in the Eucharist is His Body and Blood.

It is then in those who worthily receive it, as a seed of heavenly life, whether they wake, or whether they sleep; by virtue of that holy Communion, they are the LORD's. And shall we suppose that its virtue ends, when we go out of this world? Surely the nearer we draw to CHRIST, the more powerfully may we expect His blessed influences to work upon us. And we have warrant of Scripture for our hope. The HOLY GHOST by St. Paul has taught us to think of the burial of a Christian as of sowing seed: sowing that which will indeed outwardly and visibly crumble, decay, and die, but which has yet in it, through all those changes, something which keeps it in a manner alive; which prepares it for a new manifestation of the life that is in it, and a far better one, before long. CHRIST'S Body, received as He has commanded, is to our bodies "a quickening Spirit." "Doth any man doubt," says the excellent Hooker, 'but that even from the Flesh of CHRIST our very bodies do receive that life which shall make them glorious at the latter day, and for which they are already accounted parts of His Blessed Body? Our corruptible bodies could never live the life they shall live, were it not that here they are joined with His Body which is incorruptible." If we cannot understand how this should be, neither can we understand how whilst we live we should be truly members of CHRIST, deriving heavenly life from HIM.

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To our brethren, therefore, in the grave and in Paradise, no less than to us who are still on earth, we may apply St. Paul's words:

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Ye are dead, and your life is hid with CHRIST in GOD. When CHRIST, who is our life," (theirs and ours alike,) "shall appear, then," and not till then, "shall the clouds roll away, and the