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The Church has here drawn up a most pious meditation for the blessing and sanctifying of our own souls, and the application of this example to our spiritual advantage. She presents us with a noble strain of devotion, consisting of a meditation on the shortness and misery and uncertainty of life, together with an acknowledgment of our dependance on God, whom yet we have disobliged and offended with our sins. However, we presume to fly to Him for succour, and beg of Him to support us under the pains of temporal death here, and to preserve us from eternal death hereafter. The passages are portions of Scripture eminently profitable to all living. We are reminded from the book of Job that "man born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble, cometh forth like a flower and is cut down :

fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth

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All beauty, felicity, splendour and gaiety fall before the stroke of sickness or of death, as the gaudy flower before the scythe, or they pass away like the fleeting shadow. 1 Peter i. 14, has a similar reflection,-" all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass; the grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away;" whatever any of the human race ever boasted of, or rejoiced in, was, and is, as the flower of the grass, whether it be noble birth, genius, learning, accomplishments, wealth, or splendid actions, all must soon wither and be cut down in the grave. Bringing to our notice, that "in the midst of life we are in death," we may profitably consider the language of St. James iv. 14, "ye know not what shall be on the morrow-for what is your

life? it is even a vapour that appeareth for a time and then vanisheth away.' Thus persons eager in pursuing worldly advantages, pleased with the plans which they had formed for obtaining them, and sanguine in expecting success, but not duly considering the uncertainty of life, nor their entire dependance on God for every thing, may be led to ask themselves, what are their lives, but a vapour, or luminous meteor, which, gliding through the air in the night, may appear beautiful for a moment, and then suddenly vanishes for ever-and may further consider that an eternity of bliss or woe to each must be determined by their conduct during this fleeting moment. We seek in such seasons for succour, and turn for comfort to Christ, and great encouragement is there so to do. "For in that He Himself hath suffered

being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted." Heb. ii. 18. "God is our hope and strength, a very present help in trouble." Psalm xlvi. 1. When further praying to the Lord as "knowing the secrets of our hearts," the strong expressions of the Psalmist may again rise in our minds-" Lord, thou knowest all my desire and my groaning is not hid from thee." Psalm xxxviii. 9. "Lord, bow down thine ear and hear: open, Lord, thine eyes and see." 2 Kings xix. 16.

"Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say-Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thine heritage to destruction." The last supplication we here offer is that no pains or terror of temporal death may make us fall off from God by a dangerous despair, and if we

can prevail, we shall escape all that is evil in natural death, and be wholly free from eternal death.

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Then while the earth shall be cast upon the body by some standing by, the Priest shall say,

Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.

As in all addresses to God we should be cautious in our expressions, particularly in a part of the service so solemn as the actual commitment of the body to the

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