CHAPTER XXX.

THOUGHTS ON DEATH: EXTRACTED FROM A LETTER WRITTEN BY M. PASCAL ON THE DEATH OF HIS FATHER.

WHEN we are under affliction for the death of a person who was dear to us, or for any misfortune which befals us, we ought not to seek for consolation in ourselves, or in other men, or in any part of the creation, but we ought to seek it in God alone. And the reason of this is, that no created being is the first cause of those accidents which we call afflictions. But the providence of God being the true and only cause, the sovereign, and the disposer of them, we ought undoubtedly to repair immediately to their source, and look up to their author to find solid consolation. If we observe this rule, if we look on this death which we are lamenting, not as an effect of chance, or as a fatal necessity of nature, or as the sport of those elements and particles of which man is composed, (for God has not left his elect to the caprices of chance,) but as the indispensable, inevitable, just, and holy result of a decree of God's providence now executed in the fulness of time; and that whatever has now happened, was from everlasting pre-determined and present with God; if, I say, by a transport of grace, we regard this occurrence, not in itself, and abstracted from God, but out of itself, and in the will of God, in the justice

of his decree, and in the order of his providence, which is the real cause that has produced it, without which it would not have happened, by which alone it has happened, and in the very manner in which it has happened, we shall adore in humble silence the unfathomable depth of his judgments; we shall reverence the holiness of his decrees; we shall bless the guidance of his providence; and uniting our will to the will of God himself, we shall choose with him, in him, and for him, the very same events which he has chosen in us, and for us, from all eternity.

There is no consolation, but in truth alone. It is evident that Seneca and Socrates have nothing which can convince, or console us, on these occasions. Both were in the error which has blinded all mankind from the beginning. They looked on death as natural to man; and all the discourses which they have founded on this false principle, are so vain and so destitute of solidity, that they only serve by their uselessness to demonstrate how weak men are in general, since the noblest productions of the wisest among them, are so childish and contemptible.

It is not so with Jesus Christ; it is not so with the canonical books of Scripture. There the truth is revealed; and consolation is as infallibly joined to the truth as it is infallibly separated from error. Let us, therefore, view death in that truth which the Holy Spirit has taught us. And we have the admirable advantage of knowing that death is in truth and reality the punishment of sin, imposed on man to expiate his guilt, and necessary to man to cleanse him from sin; that it is this alone which can deliver the soul from the concupiscence of the body, from which saints are never entirely free, while they live in this world. We know that life, and the life of Christians, is a continual sacrifice, which can only be completed by death. We know that Jesus Christ came into the world and offered himself as a sacrifice and a real propitiation ;

that his birth, his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, his sitting for ever at the right-hand of the Father, and his presence in the eucharist, are but one and the same sacrifice; and we know that what was accomplished in Jesus Christ, must be accomplished also in each of his members.

Let us then consider life as a sacrifice; and let the accidents of life make no other impression on the minds of Christians, but in proportion as they interrupt or accomplish this sacrifice. Let us count nothing evil but what turns a sacrifice to God into a sacrifice to the devil; and let us call every thing a good, which renders that which was a sacrifice to the devil in Adam, a sacrifice to God; and let us examine the nature of death by this rule.

In order to this, it is necessary to recur to the person of Jesus Christ; for as God only regards men through their mediator Jesus Christ, so ought they neither to regard others, nor themselves, but through his mediation.

If we do not look through this medium, we shall find nothing in ourselves but real miseries, or abo minable pleasures; but if we consider all things in Jesus Christ, we shall find all is consolation, satis faction, and edification.

Let us then view death in Jesus Christ, not without Jesus Christ. Without Jesus Christ it is dreadful, it is detestable, it is the terror of nature. In Jesus Christ, it is altogether different; it is amiable, holy, and the joy of the believer. Every thing, even death itself, is rendered sweet in Jesus Christ; and it was for this he suffered; he died to sanctify death and suffering to us. And as he was God and man, he was all that was great and all that was abject, that he might sanctify all things in himself, except sin, and might be an example to us in every possible condition.

To know what death is, and what death in Jesus Christ is, we must examine what place it holds in

respect to his continual and uninterrupted sacrifice; and in order to this we may observe, that in sacrifices the principal part is the death of the victim. The oblation and sanctification which precede, are the preparations for it, but death is the completion, in which, by surrendering its life, the creature pays to God the utmost homage of which it is capable; thus annihilating itself before the eyes of his majesty, and adoring his supreme existence, who alone essentially exists. There is, indeed, another thing subsequent to the death of the victim, without which its death would be useless; namely, God's acceptance of the sacrifice, which is signified by the scripture expression, "and the Lord smelled a sweet savour." Gen. viii. 21. This, indeed, crowns the oblation; but it is rather an action of God towards the creature, than of the creature towards God; so that the last act of the creature is its death.

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Each of these circumstances were fulfilled in Jesus Christ, when he came into the world. Through the eternal Spirit, he offered himself." Heb. ix. 14. "When he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared me. Then, said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God; yea, thy law is within my heart." Heb. x. 5. Ps. xl. 7, 8. Here is his oblation; his sanctification immediately follows it. His sacrifice continued through his life, and was completed by his death. It was needful for him " to suffer these things, and to enter into his glory." Luke xxiv. 26. "Though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;" and "in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, he was heard in that he feared;" and God raised him from the dead, and clothed him with that glory, (which was formerly prefigured by the fire which fell from heaven on the

sacrifices,) to burn and consume his body, and to restore it to a life of glory. This is what Jesus Christ has obtained, and the purpose which was answered by his resurrection.

Thus this sacrifice being perfected by the death of Jesus Christ, and consummated by the resurrection of his body, in which the image of the body of sin was swallowed up in glory, Jesus Christ had performed every thing on his part; and nothing remained but that the sacrifice should be accepted of God, and that, as incense, it should ascend, and carry up its odour to the throne of the Divine Majesty. And thus Jesus Christ was in this state of immolation, offered, raised up, and received at the throne of God itself, at his ascension, in which he rose partly by his own power, and partly by the power of the Holy Spirit, which every where encompassed him. He was carried up as the odour of the sacrifices, which was the figure of Jesus Christ, was carried up by the air which supported it; and which represented the Holy Spirit. And in the Acts of the Apostles, it is expressly related that he was received into heaven, to give us an assurance, that this holy sacrifice, thus accomplished on earth, has been accepted and received into the bosom of God.

Such is the state of things with regard to our glorious Lord. Let us now consider them in ourselves. When we enter into the church, which is the world of believers, and more especially of the elect, into which Jesus Christ entered from the moment of his incarnation, by a privilege peculiar to himself as the only Son of God, we are offered and sanctified. The sacrifice continues through life, and is completed at death, in which the soul, entirely leaving all those vices, and that earthly love, the contagion of which had infected it during life, finishes the immolation of itself, and is received into the bosom of God.

Let us not therefore grieve for the death of be