108 TVE PRACTICAL US"ES ESERM. XXXVI; learned by the - gospel, the excellency and virtue of the propitiation of Christ, to cancel my iniquities; and shall I- not receive this propitiation in all the methods of his own appointment ? Shal1,I dare to say, it is enough for me to read it in the bible, and to hear it in the ministry of the, word; and to meditate on it in private, when my Lordhas given me an express command to receive it also in those emblems and sensible figures of bread and wine, and has sanctified them for this very purpose? Is this a kind return to him that died for me ?. " Blessed Redeemer, forgive all my omissions, my delays, my careless or slothful neglects of:this holy ordi- nance of thine; and all my sinful itidiferency about it. o scatter all my doubts, banish all my excuses, and bring nie to thy holy table as a.penitent and humble dis- ciple, as a worthy and joyful receiver : there let mejoin with 'my fellow -christians and remember thy dying love." X. We may use this doctrine as our most effectual-de- fence against the terrors of dying; and as our joyful hopeof a blessed resurrection. The atonement of Christ is a.divine support in the agonies of death. At such a season a thousand past ini-- quities will sometimes croud in upon the memory, and fill the soul with .'horor, and perhaps Satan the accuser makes á dreadful assault upon the conscience at the same time, and tornments the spirit with painful agonies : But the most - formidable terrors, the sharpest. agonies find a relief here, the very sting of death is taken away by the death of Christ 1 C,or. xv. 56. " The sting of death is sin,. and-the strength of sin to condemn us is the law of God: but thanks be to God through Christ Jesus," wvhc> bath answered the demands of the condemning law, and taken away the sting of deathp by his atoning sacrifice. We may.now,venture into,the presence ofa' holy and righteous God,. laying fresh hold of the atonement in a dying hour by a living faith; endhaving our departing spirits sprinkled with the blood of Christ. It was this ve,ry,blood in the virtueofwhich Jesus himself was raised from ethe d.ead'; IIeb. xiii. 20. " The God of peace brought again-from thedead our -Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, through the Hoed. of the ever- lasting covenant." It was in the virtue of.tbi-sblood that he ascended and appeared- before God in. Heaven : IIe.
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