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the prospect of death awakens. The greatest of all the advantages which we possess, and that which indeed is the foundation of all the rest, is existence. We accordingly observe that old people, though all their faculties are much impaired, always enjoy a certain nameless superiority over young persons. The reflection that there was a time when they existed, while as yet the young did not exist, constitutes this superiority; and young persons, in their turn, feel a superiority suggested to them by the thought, that a time is coming when they shall exist, whereas the others shall be no more. Death terminates, to appearance, an advantage which is the foundation of every other. And is it any wonder that the heart of man should sink under such a consideration?

"Now is come salvation and strength, and the | is the fear of falling back into nothing, which kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb," Rev. xii. 10, 11. Let us, however, reduce our reflections on the subject to method. Three considerations render death formidable to man; three considerations disarm death in the apprehension of the Christian; 1. The veil which conceals from the eyes of the dying person, the state on which he is about to enter: 2. The remorse of conscience which the recollection of his guilt excites: 3. The loss of titles, honours, and every other earthly possession. In these respects chiefly, "he who has the power of death subjects men to bondage:" these are the things which render death formidable.

In opposition to this, the death of Jesus Christ, 1. Removes the veil which concealed futurity from us, and constitutes an authentic proof of the immortality of the soul: 2. The death of Jesus Christ is a sacrifice presented to divine justice for the remission of our sins: 3. The death of Jesus Christ gives us complete assurance of a blessed eternity. These are the three considerations which disarm death in the apprehension of the dying believer. And this is a brief abstract of the important truths delivered in this text.

In vain will we flee for refuge from this depressing reflection, to the arguments which reason, even a well-directed reason, supplies. If they are satisfying of themselves, and calculated to impress the philosophic mind, they are far beyond the reach of a vulgar understanding, to which the very terms spirituality and existence are barbarous and unintelligible. To no purpose will we have recourse to what has been said on this subject, by the most enlightened of the pagan world, and to what, in particular, Tacitus relates of Seneca,* on his going into the bath which was to receive the blood, as it streamed from his opened veins: he besprinkled the bystanders with the fluid in which his limbs were immerged, with this me

drops of water as a libation to Jupiter the Deliverer. In order to secure us against terrors so formidable, we must have a guide more safe than our own reason. In order to obtain a persuasion of the immortality of the soul, we must have a security less suspicious than that of a Socrates or a Plato. Now that guide, my brethren, is the cross of Jesus Christ: that security is an expiring Redeemer. Two principles concur in the demonstration of all-important truth.

The devil renders death formidable, through uncertainty respecting the nature of our souls; the death of Christ dispels that terror, by demonstrating to us that the soul is immortal.morable expression, that he presented those The devil renders death formidable by awakening the recollection of past guilt; the death of Jesus Christ restores confidence and joy, for it is the expiation of all our sins. The devil clothes death with terror, by rendering us sensible to the loss of those possessions of which death is going to deprive us; the death of Jesus Christ tranquillizes the mind, because it is a pledge to us of an eternal felicity. The first of these ideas represents Jesus Christ to us as a martyr, who has sealed with his own blood a doctrine which rests entirely on the immortality of the soul. The second represents him as a victim, offering himself in our stead, to divine justice. And the third represents him as a conqueror, who has, by his death, acquired for us a kingdom of everlasting bliss.

Had we nothing farther in view, than to present you with vague ideas of the sentiments of the sacred authors, on this subject, here our discourse might be concluded. But these truths, treated thus generally, could make but a slight impression. It is of importance to press them one by one, and, opposing in every particular, the triumph of the Redeemer, to the empire of the wicked one, to place in its clearest point of light, the interesting truth contained in our text, namely, that Jesus Christ, "through his own death, has destroyed him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; that he might deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their life-time subject to bondage."

I. The first consideration which renders death formidable: the first yoke imposed on the necks of the children of men, by that tremendous prince who " has the power of death,"

1. The doctrine of Jesus Christ establishes the immortality of the soul.

2. The death of Jesus Christ is an irresistible proof of the truth of his doctrine.

1. That the doctrine of Jesus Christ establishes the immortality of the soul is a point which no one pretends to dispute with us. A man has but to open his eyes in order to be convinced of it. We shall, accordingly, make but a single remark on this head. It is this, that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul ought not to be considered merely as a particular point of the religion of Jesus Christ, independent of which it may subsist as a complete whole. It is a point without which Christianity cannot exist at all, and separated from which the religion of Jesus Christ, the fullest, the most complete, and the most consistent that ever was presented to the world, becomes the most imperfect, barren, and inconsistent. The whole fabric of the gospel rests on this foundation, that the soul is immortal. Wherefore was it that Jesus Christ, the Lord of universal nature, had a manger for his cradle, and a sta

* Annal. Lib. xv.

ble for his palace? because nis "kingdom was | not of this world," John xviii. 16. This supposes the immortality of the soul. Wherefore is the Christian encouraged to bid defiance to tyrants, who may drag him from a prison, from a dungeon, who may nail him to a cross, who may mangle his body on a wheel? It is because their power extends no farther than to the "killing of the body," Matt. x. 28, while the soul is placed far beyond their reach. This supposes immortality. Wherefore must the Christian deem himself miserable, were he to achieve the conquest of the whole world, at the expense of a good conscience? Because it will "profit a man nothing to gain the whole world, if he lose his own soul," Matt. xvi. 26. This supposes immortality. Wherefore are we not the most miserable of all creatures? Because we have hope in Christ not for this life only," 1 Cor. xv. 19. This supposes immortality. The doctrine of Jesus Christ, therefore, establishes the truth of the immortality of the soul.

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2. But we said, in the second place, that the death of Jesus Christ is a proof of his doctrine. He referred the world to his death, as a sign by which it might be ascertained whether or not he came from God. By this he proposed to stop the mouth of incredulity. Neither the purity of his life, nor the sanctity of his deportment, nor the lustre of his miracles had as yet prevailed so far as to convince an unbelieving world of the truth of his mission. They must have sign upon sign, prodigy upon prodigy. Jesus Christ restricts himself to one: "Destroy this temple, and within three days I will build it up again," Mark xiv. 58. An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas," Matt. xii. 39. This sign could not labour under any ambiguity. And this sign was accomplished. There is no longer room to doubt of a truth demonstrated in a manner so illustrious.

Our ancestors devised,* with greater simplicity, it must be allowed, than strength of reasoning, a very singular proof of the innocence of persons accused. They presented to them a bar of hot iron. If the person under trial had the firmness to grasp it, and received no injury from the action of the burning metal, he was acquitted of the charge. This proof was, as we have said, devised with more simplicity than strength of reasoning: no one having a right to suppose that God will perform a miracle, to evince his innocence to the conviction of his judges. I acknowledge at the same time, that had I been an eye-witness of such an experiment; had I beheld that element which dissolves, which devours bodies the most obdurate, respecting the hand of a person accused of a crime, I should certainly have been very much struck at the sight of such a spectacle.

But what shall we say of the Saviour of the world, after the proof to which he was put He "walked through the fire without being burnt," Isa. xliii. 2. He descended into the bosom of the grave: the grave respected him, and those other insatiables which never say "it is enough," Prov. xxx. 16, opened a passage

. Rasquier Recher. de la France, liv. iv. 2.

for his return to the light. You feel the force of this argument. Jesus Christ, having died in support of the truth of a doctrine entirely founded on the supposition of the immortality of the soul, there is no longer room to doubt whether the soul be immortal.

Let us here pause for a few moments, and before we enter on the second branch of our subject, let us consider how far this position, so clearly proved, so firmly established, has a tendency to fortify us against the fears of death.

Suppose for an instant that we knew nothing respecting the state of souls, after this life is closed, and respecting the economy on which we must then enter; supposing God to have granted us no revelation whatever on this interesting article, but simply this, that our souls are immortal, a slight degree of meditation on the case, as thus stated, ought to operate as an inducement rather to wish for death, than to fear it. It appears probable that the soul, when disengaged from the senses, in which it is now enveloped, will subsist in a manner infinitely more noble than it could do here below, during its union with matter. We are perfectly convinced that the body will, one day, contribute greatly to our felicity; it is an essential part of our being, without which our happiness must be incomplete. But this necessity, which fetters down the functions of the soul, on this earth, to the irregular movements of ill-assorted matter, is a real bondage. The soul is a prisoner in this body. A prisoner is a man susceptible of a thousand delights, but who can enjoy, however, only such pleasures as are compatible with the extent of the place in which he is shut up: his scope is limited to the capacity of his dungeon: he beholds the light only through the aperture of that dungeon: all his intercourse is confined to the persons who approach his dungeon. But let his prison-doors be thrown open; from that moment, behold him in a state of much higher felicity. Thenceforward he can maintain social intercourse with all the men in the world; thenceforward he can contemplate an unbounded body of light; thenceforward he is able to expatiate over the spacious universe.

This exhibits a portrait of the soul. A prisoner to the senses, it can enjoy those delights only which have a reference to sense. It can see only by means of the cuticles and the fibres of its eyes: it can hear only by means of the action of the nerves and tympanum of its ears: it can think only in conformity to certain modifications of its brain. The soul is susceptible of a thousand pleasures, of which it has not so much as the idea. A blind man has a soul capable of admitting the sensation of light; if he be deprived of it, the reason is, his senses are defective, or improperly disposed. Our souls are susceptible of a thousand unknown sensations; but they receive them not, in this economy of imperfection and wretchedness, because it is the will of God that they should perceive only through the medium of those organs, and that those organs, from their limited nature, should be capable of admitting only limited sensations.

But permit the soul to expatiate at large, let it take its natural flight, let these prison walls be broken down, O, then! the soul becomes

capable of ten thousand inconceivable new delights. Wherefore do you point to that ghastly corpse? Wherefore deplore those eyes closed to the light, those spirits evaporated, that blood frozen in the veins, that motionless, lifeless mass of corruption? Why do you say to me, "My friend, my father, my spouse is no more; he sees, he hears, he acts no longer." He sees no longer, do you say? He sees no longer, I grant, by means of those visual rays which were formed in the retina of the eye; but he sees as do those pure intelligences which never were clothed with mortal flesh and blood. He hears no more through the medium of the action of the ethereal fluid, but he hears as a pure spirit. He thinks no longer through the intervention of the fibres of his brain; but he thinks from his own essence, because, being a spirit, the faculty of thought is essential to him, and inseparable from his nature.

SERMON LXXX.

ON THE FEAR OF DEATH. PART II.

HEBREWS ii. 14, 15 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same: that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil: and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage. IN discoursing from these words, we observed, that death is rendered formidable to man, by a threefold consideration, and that three considerations of an opposite nature strip him of all his terrors, in the eye of the believer in Christ Jesus. Death is formidable, 1. Because of the veil which conceals from the eyes of the dying person, that state on which he is about to enter. 2. From remorse of conscience, which the recollection of past guilt excites. 3. From the loss of titles, honours, and all other earthly possessions.

In opposition to these, the death of Christ, 1. Removes the veil which conceals futurity, and constitutes an authentic proof of the immortality of the soul. 2. It is a sacrifice presented to divine justice for the remission of sin. 3. It gives us complete assurance of a blessed eternity. These are the considerations which disarm death of his terrors to the dying believer. We have finished what was proposed on the first particular, and have shown, 1. That the doctrine of Jesus Christ fully establishes the soul's immortality; and, 2. That the death of Jesus Christ is an irresistible proof of the truth of his doctrine.

But to no purpose would it be to fortify the mind against the apprehension of ceasing to exist, unless we are delivered from the terror of being for ever miserable. In vain is it to have demonstrated that our souls are immortal, if we are haunted with the well-grounded apprehension of their falling into the hands of that God who " is a consuming fire." In this case, what constitutes a man's greatness would constitute his misery. Let us endeavour,

II. In the second place, to dissipate the dreadful apprehension which a guilty conscience awakens in the prospect of judgment to come. Having considered Jesus Christ as a martyr, who sealed with his own blood the doctrine which he preached, and his death as an argument in support of the immortality of the soul taught in that doctrine; let us contemplate our divine Saviour as a victim, which God has substituted in our place, and his death as a sacrifice offered up to divine justice, for the expiation of our offences.

One of the principal dangers to be avoided in controversies, and particularly in that which we are going to handle, is to imagine that all arguments are of equal force. Extreme care must be taken to assign to each its true limits, and to say, this argument proves thus far, that other goes so much farther. We must thus advance step by step up to truth, and form, of those arguments united, a demonstration so much the more satisfactory, in proportion as we have granted to those who dispute it, all that they could in reason ask. On this principle we divide our arguments into two classes. The first we propose only as presumptions in favour of the doctrine of the satisfaction. To the second we ascribe the solidity and weight of demonstration. Of the first class are the following:

I. We allege human reason as a presumptive argument in support of the doctrine which we maintain. We do not mean to affirm, that human reason derives from the stores of her own illumination the truth of this doctrine. So far from that we confidently affirm, that this is one of the mysteries which are infinitely beyond the reach of human understanding. It is one of " the things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man," 1 Cor. ii. 9. But we say that this mystery presents nothing that shocks human reason, or that implies a shadow of contradiction. What do we believe? That God has united the human nature to the divine, in the person of Jesus Christ, in a manner somewhat resembling that in which he has united the body to the soul, in the person of man. We say that this composition (pardon the expression,) this composition of Humanity and of Deity suffered in what was human of it; and that what was divine gave value to the sufferings of the man, somewhat after the manner in which we put respect on a human body, not as a material substance, but as united to an intelligent soul.

These are the terms in which we propose our mystery. And there is nothing in this which involves a contradiction. If we had said that the Divinity and Humanity were confounded or common; if we had said that Deity, who is impassible, suffered; if we had said that Jesus Christ as God made satisfaction to Jesus Christ as God, reason might have justly reclaimed; but we say that Jesus Christ suffered as man; we say that the two natures in his person were distinct; we say that Jesus Christ, suffering as a man, made satisfaction to God maintaining the rights of Deity. This is the first step we advance in this career. Our first argument we carry thus far, and no farther.

hence those hecatombs; hence those human
victims; hence that blood which streamed on
the altars, and so many other rites of religious
worship, the existence of which no one is dis-
posed to call in question. What consequence
do we deduce from this position? The truth
of the doctrine of the atonement? No: we do
not carry our inference so far. We only con-
clude, that there is no room to run down the
Christian religion, if it instructs us that God
demanded satisfaction to his justice, by an
expiatory sacrifice, before he could give an un-
restrained course to his goodness. This third
argument we carry thus far, and no farther.
4. A fourth reflection hinges on the corres-

II. Our second argument is taken from the divine justice. We say that the idea which we have of the divine justice presents nothing inconsistent with the doctrine we are endeavouring to establish, but on the contrary leads us directly to adopt it. The divine justice would be in opposition to our doctrine, did we affirm that the innocent Jesus suffered as an innocent person; but we say that he suffered, as loaded with the guilt of the whole human race. The divine justice would be in opposition to our doctrine, did we affirm that Jesus Christ had "the iniquity of us all laid upon him," whether he would or not; but we say that he took this heavy load upon himself voluntarily. The divine justice would be in opposition to our doc-pondence of our belief, respecting this partrine, did we affirm that Jesus Christ took on himself the load of human guilt, to encourage men in the practice of sin; but we say that he acted thus in the view of sanctifying them, by procuring their pardon. The divine justice would be in opposition to our doctrine did we affirm that Jesus Christ, in assuming the load of our guilt, sunk under the weight of it, so that the universe, for the sake of a few guilty wretches, was deprived of the most distinguished being that could possibly exist; but we say that Jesus Christ, in dying for us, came off victorious over death and the grave. The divine justice, therefore, presents nothing inconsistent with the doctrine of the satisfaction.

But we go much farther, and affirm, that the idea of divine justice leads directly to the doctrine. The atonement corresponds to the demands of justice. We shall not here presume to determine the question, whether it is possible for God, consistently with his perfections, to pardon sin without exacting a satisfaction. Whatever advantage we might have over those who deny our thesis, we shall not press it on the present occasion. But, in any case, they must be disposed to make this concession, that if the wisdom of God has devised the means of obtaining a signal satisfaction to justice, in unison with the most illustrious display of goodness; if he can give to the universe an unequivocal proof of his abhorrence of sin, in the very act of pardoning the sinner; if there be a method to keep offenders in awe, even while mercy is extended to them, it must undoubtedly be more proper to employ such a method than to omit it. This is the second step we advance towards our conclusion. Our second argument we carry thus far, and no farther.

3. Our third consideration is taken from the suggestions of conscience, and from the practice of all nations. Look at the most polished, and at the most barbarous tribes of the human race; at nations the most idolatrous, and at those which have discovered the purest ideas on the subject of religion. Consult authors of the remotest antiquity, and authors the most recent: transport yourself to the ancient Egyptians, to the Phenicians, to the Gauls, to the Carthaginians, and you will find that, in all ages, and in every part of the globe, men have expressed a belief that the Deity expected sacrifices should be offered up to him: nay, not only sacrifices, but such as had, as far as it was possible, something like a proportion to his greatness. Hence those magnificent temples;

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ticular, with that of every age of the Christian
church, in uninterrupted succession, from Jesus
Christ down to our own times.
All the ages
of the Christian world have, as we do, spoken
of this sacrifice. But we must not enlarge.
Whoever wishes for complete information on
this particular, will find a very accurate collec-
tion of the testimonies of the fathers, at the
end of the treatise on the satisfaction, com-
posed by the celebrated Grotius. The doctrine
of the atonement, therefore, is not a doctrine
of yesterday, but has been transmitted from
age to age, from Jesus Christ down to our own
times. This argument we carry thus far and
no farther.

Here then we have a class of arguments which, after all, we would have you to consider only as so many presumptions in favour of the doctrine of the atonement. But surely we are warranted to proceed thus far, at least, in concluding; a doctrine in which human reason finds nothing contradictory: a doctrine which presents nothing repugnant to the divine attributes, nay, to which the divine attributes directly lead us; a doctrine perfectly conformable to the suggestions of conscience, and to the practice of mankind in every age, and of every nation; a doctrine received in the Christian church from the beginning till now; a doctrine which, in all its parts, presents nothing but what is entirely worthy of God, when we examine it at the tribunal of our own understanding: such a doctrine contains nothing to excite our resentment, nothing that we ought not to be disposed to admit, if we find it clearly laid down in the Scriptures.

Now, my brethren, we have only to open the Bible in order to find express testimonies to this purpose; and not only do we meet with an infinite number of passages in which the doctrine is clearly taught, but a multitude of classes of such passages.

1. In the first class, we must rank all those passages which declare that Jesus Christ died for us. It would be no easy matter to enumerate them; "I delivered unto you first of all," says St. Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians, xv. 3, “that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures." "Christ also hath once suffered for sins," says St. Peter, in his first epistle general, iii. 18, "the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God."

2. In a second class must be ranked those passages which represent Jesus Christ as suf

fering the punishment which we had deserved. | fice of Jesus Christ, which the Jews, to no purThe fifty-third chapter of the prophet Isaiah turns entirely on this subject; and the apostles hold the self-same language. They say expressly that Christ "was made to be sin for us, who knew no sin," 2 Cor. v. 21, that he was "made a curse for us," Gal. iii. 13, that he "bare our sins in his own body on the tree," 1 Pet. ii. 24.

3. In a third class must be ranked all those passages in which our salvation is represented as being the fruit of Christ's death. The persons, whose opinions we are combating, maintain themselves on a ground which we established in a former branch of this discourse, namely, that the death of Jesus Christ was a demonstration of the truth of his doctrine. They say that this is the reason for which our salvation is considered as the effect of that death. But if we are saved by the death of Jesus Christ, merely because it has sealed a doctrine which leads to salvation, how comes it then, that our salvation is nowhere ascribed to the other parts of his ministry, which contributed, no less than his death, to the confirmation of his doctrine? Were not the miracles of Jesus Christ, for example, proofs equally authentic as his death was, of the truth of his doctrine? Whence comes it, that our salvation is nowhere ascribed to them? This is the very thing we are maintaining. The resurrection, the ascension, the miracles were absolutely necessary to give us assurance, that the wrath of God was appeased; but Christ's death alone was capable of producing that effect. You will more sensibly feel the force of this argument, if you attend to the connexion which our text has with what follows in the 17th verse, "Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren; that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest to make reconciliation for the sins of the people."

If we are saved by the death of Jesus Christ, merely because that event sealed the truth of his doctrine, wherefore should it have been necessary for him to assume our flesh? Had he descended from heaven in the effulgence of his glory; had he appeared upon Mount Zion, such as he was upon Mount Sinai, in flashes of lightning, with the voice of thunder, with a retinue of angels; would not the truth of the gospel have been established infinitely better than by the death of a man? Wherefore, then, was it necessary that Christ should die? It was because the victim of our transgressions must be put to death. This is St. Paul's reasoning. And for this reason it is that our salvation is nowhere ascribed to the death of the martyrs, though the death of the martyrs was, like that of Jesus Christ, a proof of the truth of the gospel.

pose, sought for in those which Moses prescribed. Now what did the Jews look for in their sacrifices? Was it not the means of appeasing the Deity? If, therefore, the sacrifices of the Jews were the expiation of sin, only in figure and in a shadow, if the sacrifice of Jesus Christ be their body and reality, does it not follow that Jesus Christ has really and literally expiated our transgressions? To pretend that the Levitical sacrifices were not offered up for the expiation of great offences, but only for certain external indecencies, which rather polluted the flesh, than wounded the conscience, is an attempt to maintain one error by another; for a man has only to open his eyes, to be convinced that the Levitical sacrifices were offered up for offences the most atrocious; it is needless to adduce any other evidence than the annual sacrifice prescribed, Lev. xvi. 21, 22, in the offering of which, Aaron "laid both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confessed over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins. . . . and the goat did bear upon him all their iniquities."

5. In a fifth class must be ranked the circumstances of the passion of Jesus Christ, and of his agony in the garden; that sorrow, those fears, those agitations, those cries, those tears, that bloody sweat, those bitter complaints: "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Matt. xxvi. 46. The argument derived from this will appear of still greater weight, if you support it by thus reflecting, that no person in the universe ought to have met death with so much joy as Jesus Christ, had he suffered a mere ordinary death. Christ died with a perfect submission to the will of his father, and with a fervent love to mankind. Christ died in the full assurance of the justice of his cause, and of the innocency of his life. Christ died completely persuaded of the immortality of the soul, and of the certainty of a life to come. Christ died under a complete assurance of the exalted felicity which he was to enjoy after death. He had come from God. He was returning to God. Nay, there ought to have been something more particular in his triumph, than in that of the generality of believers. Because he had "made himself of no reputation;" God was about "to give him a name which is above every name." A cloud was going to serve him as a triumphal car, and the church triumphant was preparing to receive him with acclamations of joy, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in," Ps. xxiv. 7.

What then, are we to expect that Jesus Christ shall do? Shall we behold him advancing to meet death with joy? Shall he not say 4. In a fourth class, must be ranked all with St. Paul, "My desire is to depart? Shall those passages which represent the death of he not in rapture exclaim, "This day crowns Jesus Christ as the body and the reality, of are to be distributed, and I go to receive my which all the sacrifices prescribed by the law share?" No, Jesus Christ trembles, he turns were but the figure and the shadow. We pale, he fears, he sweats great drops of blood: shall select a single one out of a multitude. whereas the martyrs, with inferior illuminaThe greatest part of the Epistle to the He- tion, with feebler motives, have braved death, brews may be quoted to this effect. It is evi- have bidden defiance to the most horrid tordent that the great object of its author is to ments, have filled their tormentors with astonengage Christians to look for that in the sacri-ishment. Whence comes this difference? From

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